


Another Story

by kianspo



Series: Don't Stop Believing [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Explicit Language, Families of Choice, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 01:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14582370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kianspo/pseuds/kianspo
Summary: It’s not that he’s insecure. It’s just that Jim had grown up thinking he wasn’t allowed to want things for himself. For the longest time, he didn’t bother. The first time he said ‘fuck it’ and did it anyway, he landed in the captain’s chair. The second time…An overview of the main DNSB storyline from Jim's POV.





	Another Story

**Author's Note:**

> This probably won't make sense if you haven't read DNSB since it takes a lot of shortcuts and some events are mentioned extremely briefly. It made the pacing somewhat hectic at times, but I didn't see the point of describing events already fully exposed in the main DNSB storyline in detail. The focus here is Jim and Spock's relationship and not advancement of the plot. For the plotty parts and Jim's heroics please see the main story. ;)
> 
> Unbetaed, still not a native speaker, please forgive mistakes.

\--

Jim hates Spock before he meets him.

He doesn’t know it’s Spock at the time. He just knows that some stick-up-his-ass bureaucratic asshole has not only taken offense to Jim hacking the Kobayashi Maru test, but has actually brought him up on charges. Do none of these people have a sense of humor? What the fucking fuck?

Two seconds into catching sight of Spock, Jim thinks, _‘Oh, great. A Vulcan.’_ There is literally no one more unexciting in the galaxy than the race of superior, arrogant pointy-eared sticklers for the rules and know-it-alls. 

Then Spock draws level with him, and his dark and startlingly expressive eyes meet Jim’s for the first time, up close and personal across the dais. Jim thinks _‘Holy fuck’_ and wants to take that argument elsewhere – anywhere with a hard enough surface for them to get on with the rough and physical, and Jim doesn’t even care which way it’s going to go.

Then, of course, Nero makes a house call to Vulcan, and everything goes straight to hell fast.

The next time Jim can take a breath above the water, the crisis is over, Vulcan is gone, Jim is acting captain of the freaking USS _Enterprise_ – what the ever-loving fuck – and Spock is no longer a stranger. Fact-wise, Jim doesn’t know much more about him than he had before the catastrophe, but in every other way it’s a whole different story. Spock is no longer some Vulcan, no longer even some hot guy whom Jim totally wouldn’t kick out of bed, no longer a random Starfleet superior officer who thought Jim’s attitude needed adjustment. 

Spock is Spock. An entity in and of itself. Like Uhura is Uhura, and Sulu is Sulu. Helmsman, engineer, first officer – it doesn’t matter. They are just them. Jim knows them now on a level that can’t be achieved through gathering empiric data, and Spock is – well. Spock gets under Jim’s skin in a way that no one has done before and he seems to exude no effort whatsoever to do it. Now that they’re past the yelling and the punching, there’s no way Jim is letting that go.

Yet it very nearly ends right there for all of that. 

Spock’s absurd court-martial comes completely out of the left field. Jim doesn’t get it, because, sure, Spock’s made some mistakes – although life doesn’t deal in hypotheticals and neither should Starfleet. But he’s also the man, who, while bleeding telepathically all over the place, was able to get over it, get his shit together, figure out some pretty impressive future tech, grab control over it, actually save Earth, and deliver a blow to Nero that would prove to be fatal where both a Klingon armada and Starfleet had failed to make so much as a dent in twenty-five years. That it was kamikaze-style was a different matter. 

In Jim’s educated opinion, coming from someone who’s been there, Spock deserves a fucking medal. He keeps expecting to see the note in Starfleet bulletins, as commendations and promotions positively rain on the _Enterprise_ crisis crew. After a few days when Spock’s name still isn’t there, Jim begins to suspect it’s because they want to give him the _Enterprise_ in addition to some really shiny award. Jim even has some time, half a day, probably, to sulk for no other reason that he would now have to convince Spock, probably beg him, if he’s honest, to make him part of the team. 

Not that Jim believes that Vulcans are vengeful. It’s more that you don’t push your commanding officer to the point of murderous rage and expect to have a smooth working relationship afterwards, never mind unconditional trust. It’s not like he can promise Spock not to challenge him again, though perhaps this time he’d draw the line at mutiny.

Then, out of the clear blue sky, Jim’s own unbelievable promotion is announced, then Pike’s, and then—

“Bones, what the fuck is that?” he demands, bursting through the dorm room. Starfleet have tentatively offered to move them to separate lodgings now that there are plenty available, but neither he nor McCoy wanted to go. “A court-martial? Is this a sick joke of some kind?”

McCoy is scowling at his own data PADD. “Starfleet doesn’t joke; they aren’t wired that way.”

“But this is crazy! Have they overdosed on vitamins or something?”

“I don’t think so.” McCoy’s frown deepens. “Pike told Spock this might happen actually.”

That brings Jim up short. “What?”

“Well, not in so many words. I don’t think even he could have imagined this, but he did tell Spock to be careful.”

“When’d he say that?” Jim furrows his brows, bewildered. “Wait, when did Pike manage to talk to Spock at all? He’s in the medically induced coma.”

McCoy actually looks away. “It was before we put him under. Spock came to see him.”

“You told me visitors weren’t allowed! _I_ would have liked to stop by if—”

“Well, if Spock had _asked_ me, I would have told him the same thing,” McCoy replies, irritated. “He just showed up. The staff wouldn’t even tell him if Pike was out of danger. I couldn’t leave him hanging, so I improvised.”

“I see.” Jim narrows his eyes. It’s abundantly clear that this isn’t the whole story, but it’s also obvious from the stubborn clench of McCoy’s jaw that it’s pointless to press. It’s not important anyway. “So what exactly did Pike say?”

It doesn’t elude Jim that Bones looks more at ease at this.

“Not much,” he says, remembering. “Just that he didn’t like the questions the higher-ups were asking and that Spock should watch out.”

“Do you think he will? I mean, do you think he has some kind of strategy to deal with this?”

“No idea.” McCoy shrugs. “He didn’t look too good, either. Pretty sure he’s lost weight since the last time I saw him, and it’s been just a few days.” He looks up, reluctantly concerned. “I think he might be in trouble, Jim.”

“Well, I think I know how we can find out,” Jim says, turning back to the door. “Come on.”

It takes them almost three hours to finally track down Uhura, catching her at last as she’s coming back to her quarters.

“What do you want, Kirk?” she asks sharply when he blocks her way. Her eyes are red, and her lips look like she’s been biting them for hours.

“I didn’t press charges,” he blurts out, before he can think. “You have to know that, right? Uhura, I would never—”

She rolls her eyes. “Right, because that’s what matters most right now. Let’s make this all about you, same as everything else in the universe.”

“That’s not what I—” Jim starts, then shakes his head. “Forget it. Just, have you talked to him? Do you know what he’s going to do?”

She lets out a laugh that sounds bitter and ugly. “ _Nothing_. He’s going to do absolutely nothing, because he’s got it into his stupid, stubborn head – that I just really want to smash right now – that he deserves it, all of it. He says the charges are just, and he’s not—” She wipes away an angry tear. “He’s waived counsel. He’s not going to fight it. He wouldn’t even talk to me.”

Jim reels back, stunned. “But—”

“He’s in shock,” McCoy says grimly. “He just lost his mother, his people, his _entire damn planet_. The breaking of all those bonds alone, what it does to the Vulcan brain, it’s – dammit, half the Vulcans we have over at Starfleet Medical are still catatonic.”

Both Jim and Uhura stare at McCoy with identically alarmed expressions.

“Will he get through this?” Jim asks.

McCoy shrugs. “It’s not like we have precedent to serve as a reference point. Who the hell knows? If I had to gamble, I’d say yeah, he will. He’s walking and talking at the same time, isn’t he? But I doubt he’s capable of being rational right now.”

“No.” Uhura shakes her head. “He’s not. It’s like – he can’t even look at what he’s done objectively. Everything that happened is – twisted in his mind. Everything is his fault somehow, and he’s not – he’s not that person.” She bites her lip, winces, and finishes miserably, “He’s being completely illogical.”

“So what are we going to do?” Jim asks after a pause.

Uhura clasps her hands, her motions sharp with frustration. “I don’t know. I tried to contact his father, but he’s en route to the colony, and apparently in seclusion. Not to be disturbed.”

“Parenting 101.” McCoy scowls.

“Bones.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry.”

“Pike’s in a coma,” Jim says. “I don’t trust any of the others. We have to find him some good representation, because this is insane.”

Uhura shakes her head. “I’ve been thinking about it, over and over. If he’s waived counsel, the only people who can represent him would have to have had him in their chain of command at some point. The commanding officer always has the right to represent those serving under him, even if—” She trails off, bewildered by Jim suddenly taking off.

“Jim,” Bones calls after him. “Where’re you going?”

“Back to my room,” Jim calls back without stopping. “I have this sudden urge to brush up on the regs.”

“What on earth are you on about?” McCoy frowns in confusion, but Uhura’s eyes widen.

“Oh,” she says. After a second’s pause, she takes off after Jim on a run.

They would tell him later that he’d appeared cocky and self-assured. But in reality his insides solidify into something cold and heavy, and he’s scared – no, terrified, as he strolls down the hall. He’s not afraid of the admirals. He’s queasy at the thought that Spock might say no. It doesn’t take a Vulcan to know that the odds of him saying yes are infinitesimally low. Spock has no reason to trust him, in fact, no sane person in his position would. Is he insane enough for this?

Spock looks terrible. His dress-uniform is loose on him, and Jim remembers how perfect the fit had been before. His face looks grey, and he seems – shrunk somehow, diminished. As though that cool clear energy that he normally radiates has been pulled in so tightly one almost couldn’t detect its presence.

But his back is straight, his shoulders are square, his chin lifted up high. He looks like a tiger with a broken back, ignoring the sight of his own blood pooling around him because it’s beneath his attention. 

Yet his eyes focus suddenly, more of their usual crisp sharpness pouring in, as Jim addresses the board. 

“Captain, what are you doing?” he asks urgently, and this, Jim has no trouble reading. 

Alarm. Spock has been all resigned and ready to accept his fate with quiet dignity, but apparently not if it requires a human sacrifice on top of it.

“Stopping you from committing career suicide.”

“By committing your own?”

Jim feels his heart jump to his throat, because he can tell by the determined look on Spock’s face that the next words out of his mouth will be, ‘I categorically refuse to let you do this.’ He might be wounded and cornered, but anyone who thinks that he is no longer dangerous is an idiot, and Jim is many things, but not that.

Thankfully, Komack barges in, and as Spock isn’t one to speak over an admiral, he loses his momentum, allowing Jim to press forward. He shields him from the board and, daring greatly, brushes his fingers over the top of Spock’s hand. This could very well end with him being chocked again, but Jim has always been a gambler.

It pays off.

Spock’s eyes brighten so very subtly, almost imperceptibly, at the touch. If Jim wasn’t watching him so closely, he’d have missed it. There’s clear surprise there and something else – something Jim can’t identify or dare to hope for. It’s insane and, God help him, completely illogical, but at that moment Jim feels like he would walk for miles in the cold arctic desert infested with ice monsters if he had to, to save that spark, whatever it turns out to be.

Spock inclines his head, and his voice, while pitched low, carries. “I accept Captain Kirk as my counsel.”

Fighting down the ridiculous charges is a walk in the park after that, but of course Jim manages to lose his temper. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d felt rage like that. His own disciplinary hearing – and oh, how his and Spock’s roles have been reversed – had made him mulish and frustrated. Spock’s court-martial makes him want to hit someone, repeatedly, until they bleed.

After all the careful work he’s done with the legal arguments, he’s on the verge of losing everything, unable to stop himself from spiraling out of control. He ignores McCoy’s urgent voice, ignores his own reason, ready to blast past every last bit of common sense.

Then Spock grabs his wrist, and he stops. 

He literally stops in place, breathing, feeling that cold power-presence return, curling around his wrist, sinking through his skin, whispering _calm, calm_. It’s not telepathy, Spock would never, and Vulcan telepathy doesn’t work like that anyway, but Jim does calm down involuntarily, shocked by the sudden impulse he can barely restrain to turn his palm around and interlace his fingers with Spock’s just to see what it feels like. He prays to God Spock can’t sense it through the touch.

The end is almost anticlimactic. Jim doesn’t expect Spock to jump up and down with joy with the rest of them, but he expects – something. A hint of a reaction, relief at least if not gratitude, just _something_ that would reveal that Spock cares. But even as Jim watches Uhura jump into Spock’s arms, hugging him with all her not inconsiderable force, he can detect nothing from Spock. Whatever spark has been there is gone.

It’s driving Jim crazy.

Before he can do anything about it, Spock falls off the face of the Earth, and Jim has the refit of the _Enterprise_ to deal with. It takes up all of his time and energy, but as a distraction from Spock-solving it isn’t doing a very good job.

“Pick a first officer,” Pike tells him almost immediately after he’s out of the medically induced coma. “For fuck’s sake, Jim. I know your opinion of Starfleet might be at an all-time low, but believe it or not there are capable officers out there, apart from yourself. You’ve received enough applications, surely. Read them, dammit. You can’t run a goddamn starship alone.”

“I don’t intend to,” Jim says.

He doesn’t confess that the heap of applications that the Personnel Office had forwarded him is making him severely depressed. He scans the profiles dutifully which only serves to make him more despondent. He can’t imagine working closely with any of those people without it coming to blows within the first few days.

“Then what’s the problem?” Pike asks, eyes narrowed. Unlike most people, promotion seems to have put him into an exceedingly bad mood. Jim tries to convince himself he doesn’t know why it’s making him feel guilty. “You read the profiles, you make your choice, you have a conversation. It doesn’t take a genius, and even if it did, what do you know, I’m staring at one. If you have difficulty choosing, then—”

“I don’t,” Jim says. “I know exactly who I want to work with.”

“Then again – what’s the problem?”

Jim grits his teeth. “He didn’t apply for the position, sir. In fact, he’s resigning from it.”

“Ah.” Pike falls silent, studying Jim as though he’s never seen him before. After a long pause that gives Jim plenty of time to reconsider most of his life choices, Pike says, “Jim, I know that an emergency has logic of its own. We are trained, conditioned for stressful situations, but we are still living creatures. Tempers flare, words are exchanged, and then we get over it. I get that. But even with that in mind, your working relationship with Spock is – I don’t even know what to call it. You mutinied against him. Twice. You provoked one of the most reserved people I know – hell, one of the most reserved _Vulcans_ – to the point where he tried to kill you. It’s no small matter.”

“Spock and I worked past that,” Jim says, pursing his lips stubbornly. “I want him. I don’t want to work with anyone else.”

Pike’s expression closes off even more. “You’re not exactly at a restaurant, Captain, where you can simply order anything you want. This is not how Starfleet operates.”

“With all due respect, sir, I’m not ordering a salad,” Jim bristles. “I’ve read the other profiles. I have Spock’s, too. Even if I didn’t have a history with him, he’s clearly the best. That ridiculous charade with his court-martial notwithstanding, he’s the most decorated officer of his rank in the Fleet. He could give a few captains a run for their money. You know that, sir. You picked him for your first, too.”

“And look where it’s got me,” Pike mutters, making Jim’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Sir?”

Pike waves his hand. “Right, ignore that. Spock’s resigning, Jim. There’s nothing you or I can do about that.”

“Have you tried?” Jim asks, adding belatedly, “Sir? You know him better than I do. Isn’t there something you could—”

“I know him _longer_ than you do,” Pike corrects. “And better in some areas that are not pertinent to this discussion. Right now I don’t even know where the hell he’s got to.” Pike’s tone drifts to irritated. “Let alone how to make him change his mind.”

In retrospect it’s all too transparent. Hell, Pike had all but told him outright. But just at present, Jim doesn’t listen.

He goes back to the not-so-controlled chaos that is the refit of Starfleet’s only remaining constitution-class starship and dives into work not certain that he doesn’t want to drown in it.

Spock reappears as unexpectedly as he had vanished, and the next time Jim sees him – in Pike’s office, naturally, because Jim’s life is one big fat cosmic joke – he looks tanned, disheveled, and delicious like a character from _‘The Vulcan Slave’_ , a horrible daytime holovid series that Gaila was so crazy about she’d actually made Jim watch it. Even Pike’s asshole of a secretary is making double takes, but Jim frowns, because Spock looks wrong somehow, not physically, but in a way Jim can’t quite explain. He looks – feels – less than himself somehow, and it’s not the human clothes. 

Jim can’t take it. He requisitions him before Spock has a chance to protest and physically drags him out of the room, catching a very odd, pensive look from Pike as he does. It occurs to him later that it might have had more to do with the fact that Spock allows it, because Jim’s lack of manners is certainly not novel.

Later, much later, after Liverpool and that date that Spock doesn’t know is a date and Jim feels vaguely guilty about, Pike comes to see him. He finds Jim in his old quarters on campus. Most people have moved out, because it’s too damn depressing, but Jim is too tired to care.

“Your first officer,” Pike starts, and Jim feels his indignation and frustration flare up.

“Sir, with all due respect—”

“Shut up,” Pike cuts him off, not loudly, but somehow making Jim’s mouth snap closed. He stares at Jim with an odd kind of intensity that makes Jim want to crawl somewhere where Pike’s hoverchair won’t fit.

“You know,” Pike says slowly after a long, _long_ pause, “one day I’m probably going to ask myself why the hell did I do what I’m about to do, and I’ll have no goddamn answer whatsoever. But I owe you for the court-martial – and if you ever repeat that to Spock, by the way, you’d wish I had never fished you out of that bar, son, got it?”

Jim frowns, but nods, feeling more ill at ease than he had at his Kobayashi Maru hearing.

“The two of you stuck on the same ship,” Pike continues, “is either going to be a disaster of galactic proportions or the best thing to happen to Starfleet in fifty years, there’s no telling which. Based on empirical data so far” – Pike’s lips quirk –“the most likely outcome will be you doing some amazing things together in between of trying to kill each other. Hell knows, I’m not the sanest person on the planet right now, but they made me Chief of Operations, so they’ll have to deal, and I think—” He pauses, the barest hint of a smile curving his lips. “I think I’d like to see that outcome whatever it may be.”

Jim lets out a very slow breath. Pike’s here to help.

“How did you get him, sir? When you wanted him for your First?”

Pike blinks, then shakes his head softly. “This conversation is going to haunt my dreams,” he mutters under his breath. “To answer your question, I did something radical. I asked him.”

Jim stares.

Pike smirks. “Works only in extreme cases.” His expression grows serious. “You can’t reason him into it, Jim. Even if you’re about the only person I’ve met so far who’s smart enough to hold his own against him, trying to out-logic him will eventually take you to a place where he’ll grow entirely deaf to logic or reason of any kind. He won’t thank you for it, though that, I think, you know.” He squints at Jim. “You might also be the most manipulative bastard I’ve ever known, but you can’t talk or otherwise maneuver him into it. You can’t play him. Most definitely, can’t force him.”

He sighs, somehow deflating, and suddenly Jim is struck with how old and tired Pike looks, drowning in the jaws of his hoverchair more than using it for support.

“With Spock,” Pike says softly, “there is only one thing you can do. You let him know that the door is open. You make _damn sure_ he knows that the door is open, and trust me when I say that writing it across the damn sky is not too extreme.” 

Jim feels his eyebrows arch, but nods. “Got it. And then?”

“Then you pray to whatever god you believe in that he’ll want to come in.”

The conversation _does_ come back to haunt Jim’s dreams – months and months later. At that point Jim is not at all in the mood and hopes violently that Pike is suffering, too, because all Jim wants is to hit his head against a hard surface, repeatedly and for a long time. 

But at the moment, he takes it at face value and doesn’t put the Personnel Office on hold so much as simply stops talking to them altogether. He shamelessly drops all the applications below first officer and chief science officer on Uhura, who doesn’t hesitate to give him a piece of her mind, but surprisingly doesn’t refuse. Getting rid of Nero didn’t impress her much, but ever since Spock’s court-martial she’s been growing noticeably friendlier to Jim and stopped trying to bitch-slap him when he calls her Nyota. It’s possible that he might never understand women, but hey, he’s not complaining.

Jim doesn’t pray though because Pike is a freaking geezer who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Except maybe he does. Two months later, the fact that the _Enterprise_ doesn’t have a first officer remains the most discussed topic in and around Starfleet circles, and Jim’s pretty sure he’d heard it on the news at least twice, though that, he thinks, is Uhura’s doing. If Spock managed to miss the message through all of that, he’d have to be dead.

Demonstrably, that’s not the case, because Spock strolls onto the bridge, some two minutes before their departure from space dock. Jim wants to give him a hard time just for that, but despite the gentle humor in Spock’s tongue-in-cheek offer to provide character references, Jim gets the feeling that Spock’s timing wasn’t for the dramatic effect. 

His hunch proves to be correct. The sweet joy of the most peculiar feat Jim has accomplished to date lasts for an entire shift. Then Spock takes him aside and tells him that he’s been assigned by the admiralty to evaluate Jim’s performance. Among other things.

Jim almost – almost – gets angry, but then he looks at Spock carefully and reevaluates. Spock might be many, many things, not all of them wonderful, but if there’s one thing he’s definitely not nor has ever been, it’s petty.

“Why did you agree to this?” Jim asks him, upset, but also curious.

Spock doesn’t look away and, wonder of wonders, answers the question directly. 

“Because the admirals are wrong, and I intend to do everything in my power to prove it.”

There is finality in the way he says it, using no qualifiers such as ‘I believe’ or ‘I think’. The admirals are wrong. A statement of fact.

Jim cocks his head. “You signed up because you thought I was good, huh?”

There goes the eyebrow. “I did not sign up to lavish you in compliments, Captain. There are any number of people more qualified for that task than I.”

Oh, but Spock did sign up. 

Spock, if Jim had read his file correctly, had spent years working his ass off, apart from being some kind of prodigy, to score a position at the most prestigious – and rightfully so – scientific center in the quadrant, the much lauded VSA, and then turned them down flat. He joined Starfleet, almost immediately progressing to a position where he could have his pick of postings and had only ever accepted one other person as his captain in eight years. Why he never wanted a command of his own is beyond Jim, but the operative conclusion is, Spock is extremely choosy as to just who he would accept as having that kind of power over him as a superior officer commands.

And he signed up to serve with Jim. Not to lavish Jim in compliments or anything.

It’s hard to reconcile this Spock with the one who then proceeds to criticize Jim’s every motion in his new capacity as captain. Politely and always, _always_ out of earshot of the crew, but no more pleasant for that. In retrospect, Jim can’t help but grin at that truly golden time and wish for some of that politeness back. God, Spock must have been tying himself in knots not to say exactly what he thought with bluntness he must have longed for.

The thing is, Jim had been dreaming about becoming a starship captain since he was five years old, not that he’d admit it to anyone, but this isn’t at all how he’d envisioned it happening. He might have thrown it at Pike cockily that he’d do it in three, but he could never in a million years imagine that they would actually promote him into the captain’s chair _straight out of the classroom_.

It might be one of the most tightly guarded secrets of Jim’s life, but he respects Starfleet every bit as much as he detests it. He feels like a fraud who’d bluffed his way to the top and now has no idea what to do up there. Revolutions are easy. Governing is hard. It’s not like he didn’t know that before or anything.

Spock is a walking talking representation of everything a Starfleet officer should be. He’s intelligent, competent, willing to go above and beyond, but, most importantly, he understands the service the way Jim’s father did, the way his mother still does, even if she’d sooner die than admit it, the way Pike lives and breathes. As something bigger than any one person, bigger than all of them, yet not inhumane. It’s a field where the best and the brightest compete for the privilege to offer their lives in the service of others and the most coveted reward for a job well done is another job. 

The fact that Spock might think that Jim is in this for the glory and prestige is unbearable. Not that Jim can blame him with an opening statement like that, but it makes him grind his teeth all the same. 

It takes Bones almost dying for Jim to realize that he can’t keep looking at Spock as his own personal judge and jury. Spock is there to work, same as Jim is. That he can’t help an occasional snide remark, well, that only makes him more human, metaphorically speaking. It’s not as though Jim is a saint when it comes to that.

And it does push Jim to do better, exposes him to a whole different perspective. Spock has a sneaky way of mentoring that makes one either learn really fast or give up the game. 

“Captain, would it not be more prudent to include security personnel into the landing party?”

“Spock, this is essentially a heist. The bigger the party, the bigger the chance we’d be caught. We’d need to get in without anyone seeing us, deactivate the defense grid, take the damn statue – and before you go on about stealing, I’d just like to point out that the Menalacans had stolen it from the Gri first, and if we don’t get it back this whole system will turn into a war zone—”

“I am familiar with the specifics of the assignment, Captain. I have no moral objections to your proposed solution. It is merely the method that I am concerned about.”

“Right. What’s your concern?”

“We have very limited information on the Menalacan security systems and the installation in question. Therefore any plan that relies entirely on the actions of a single individual who will also not be able to contact the ship should anything go wrong strikes me as unduly risky.”

“And you don’t like to take risks, got it.”

“Pardon me, I should have phrased it better. A plan such as this has an insufficiently low predicted rate of success. To put it in human terms, Captain, too many things could go wrong and we would not even know about it. In addition, the Menalacan judicial system is not one of elaborate design. The penalty for trespassing in a government installation is death by vivisection of a conscious subject—”

“I get the picture, but Spock, there’s a simple solution to that. Not to get caught. A trail of security guards – fine, even a couple, will increase the chances of the Menalacans catching on to us.”

“Very well, Captain. I can see you have made up your mind about it. I accept your judgment. I shall endeavor not to get caught.”

A peculiar silence falls over the bridge at this pronouncement. Jim gets out of his chair before he knows it. 

“You, Mr. Spock? I had no intention of sending you down there.”

“I see no other logical candidate. My experience with away missions and computer expertise make me the most qualified person to go.”

“Yeah, except for me.” Jim steps closer to him, angry now. He might not have Spock’s experience with away missions – no one onboard does – but he sure as hell has plenty when it comes to sneaking into places he’s not supposed to be at. And he’d been certified an A5 computer expert his first year at the Academy, which, granted, is two levels below Spock, but nothing to sneeze at. “Or did you really think I wasn’t willing to take the same risks as my crew?”

“Not at all, Captain.” Spock holds his ground; he doesn’t even tense up. If anything, his voice softens, pitched low to limit if not completely exclude their audience. “But surely you must realize that in case of your capture the Menalacans will view it as an act of war. A starship captain is, after all, equal in rank to a Federation ambassador. And, while I am certain that you would not hesitate to risk your own life for the sake of the mission, I do not believe it is within your purview as captain of this vessel to start a war with Menalac.”

Jim glares at him with a sinking feeling that Spock’s got him right where he wanted him, and Jim walked into that one all by himself.

“Therefore,” Spock continues, his tone rising subtly back to its normal volume, “I am the most qualified member of this crew to execute your plan. Unless you prefer to contact Starfleet Command and ask for their opinion?”

Jim grits his teeth. That. Asshole. 

“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Spock. We wouldn’t want to delay this time-sensitive mission now, would we?”

Spock inclines his head, the very image of deference. “With your permission then, Captain?”

“Go.” Rattled and angry, Jim turns away, letting him pass. “Chekov, Uhura, get together with Scotty and figure out a way to keep track of his lifesigns through that damn shielding.”

Uhura’s face is carved from stone as she replies curtly, “Yes, sir.”

Chekov flees the bridge at warp speed without looking at anyone at all.

Spock doesn’t get caught, but he does take his sweet time. Jim’s pretty sure he’s going to have to start dying his hair to cover all the grey from now on because Spock misses both the first and the second beam-out windows, and the only consolation they have is that, with this kind of setup, no news is good news. Uhura has long stopped glaring at Jim and switched to viciously biting her nails, and Jim comes within a hair’s breadth of leading a security squad down to the planet, diplomacy be damned, when Chekov’s voice rings clearly through the comms:

“I’ve got him, Captain! Proceeding with transport in three-two—”

Spock beams back, the damn statue wrapped securely in what is either a garbage bag or some precious tapestry. He doesn’t seem any worse for wear except for an impressive bruise over his left cheekbone and a mild burn on his right hand. He doesn’t offer one comment on the issue of security support or lack thereof. His debriefing is concise and to the point, and there’s not a trace of gloating in his tone, as though the thought wouldn’t even occur to him. Vulcans, Jim had heard somewhere, don’t come equipped with an ego.

It could be a fluke – just Spock acting out of some kind of vendetta or perhaps a pedantic desire to prove Jim wrong at every opportunity. But Jim didn’t have the highest learning curve of his class for no reason and he knows it’s not a fluke, it’s not random, and it’s not personal anything. He knows it even before he overhears Natalie Pechalat, a pretty junior science officer, complaining to her friend at the gym two days later.

“He couldn’t just tell me my safeguards were insufficient and order me to do it again like a normal CO!” she rants. “No, he said, _‘I trust your judgment, Lieutenant. If you are quite certain of the safety factor you calculated, I will now enter the chamber and conduct the experiment following your instructions.’_ And you know what? If I was stupid enough to insist I had my math right – and I nearly damn was, I was so certain I had it – I’m pretty sure he’d have gone right in, even though he knew better! He has two doctorates in my field alone – _of course_ he knew better! I go recalculate, mostly to spite him – et voila, I forgot to add the time for the plasma conduits to cool down. He could have been seriously hurt! Who does that?”

Someone with a seriously skewed mind, Jim thinks, punching the treadmill controls viciously so he’d be running up the highest possible slope. The same mind, come to think of it, that was behind the kill-your-will-to-live Kobayashi Maru simulation. No, it wasn’t a fluke. It was _teaching_. Except Jim’s pretty sure that turning oneself into a beating boy with highest stakes possible in order to get the point across didn’t come from any Starfleet manual he’s ever heard of, or a Vulcan one for that matter. That one has to have come straight from Professor Spock’s deeply demented brain.

No, Spock probably wouldn’t have gone into the experiment chamber, he’s not that suicidal, Jim’s fairly certain. But he did go on the mission Jim had devised. In his own defense, he thought it up having himself in mind, but that was exactly the point Spock was trying to make, the manipulative bastard. Had he been seriously hurt on that mission, Jim would have never forgiven himself.

As teaching methods go, this one is extreme beyond all reason, but damn effective.

Jim is not yet at the point where he could go yell at Spock for being an asshole. But the next time a similar mission is thrown into their lap, Jim selects two security guards, Sulu and Spock himself to accompany him to the planet. He’s certain he hasn’t imagined a faint look of pleased surprise on Spock’s face.

“Fool me once, Mr. Spock,” Jim murmurs, voice pitched low for Spock alone. 

“Sir?”

But he knows. This close – and Spock, normally ever careful of his personal space, doesn’t step back – Jim can see it clear and sharp in his eyes, try as he might to play ignorant.

“I’m not one of your science minions,” Jim tells him sweetly. “Next time just tell me.”

Spock drops the pretense so abruptly it gives Jim whiplash. “I did. You showed no inclination to listen.”

“So you decided to make me listen by risking your neck? Bit of an overkill, don’t you think, Commander?”

“Your argument was not without merit, and someone had to complete that mission. It could not have been you. I was qualified and—”

“‘Vivisection of a conscious subject,’” Jim quotes, interrupting. “I had nightmares for days.”

It’s too honest too soon, but it pays off, because Spock is startled into an unguarded reply.

“I was qualified, Captain, and I reasoned that, should the mission result in my capture, it would cause you the least amount of personal distress.”

Jim stares at him. 

“You thought. I would not care that much. Because it’s you,” he translates slowly.

For the first time, Spock looks uncertain. “I did not mean to imply that you would not regret the loss of life. Beyond that, however, I believed…” He trails off.

Jim doesn’t know what to do with that. This, from a man who helped him save his planet, rescued him from the clutches of certain death more than once in so many weeks, and played flirty piano duets with him at that hour of the night when every bad idea seems like a good one and every impulse leads into temptation. 

Oh, but it was close that night. Spock was _dangerous_ that night. In dark draping clothes, hair still slightly messed from a recent shower, angular features softened by the dimmed lights, he looked like the inspiration behind Goethe’s _‘part of that power which eternally wills evil, and eternally works good.’_

Long pale fingers on the keys, effortlessly fluid and natural as breathing; the warmth of his body pressed against Jim’s side, fatigue and relief of a successful mission blurring the cross-cultural taboos and propriety lines; and those dark, dark eyes looking straight into Jim, completely bypassing the surface, reaching freely into his very core… Jim prays Spock will never know how close Jim had come that night to obliterating every remaining barrier and personal conduct code altogether all in one ill-advised move.

And now this.

Some of his shock must bleed through, because Spock says quietly, “I was perhaps in error.”

Abruptly, Jim remembers that there’s a bridge full of people around them, and everyone is working their consoles a little too studiously. 

“Then I suppose I’m not the only one who learned something, Mr. Spock,” he says.

Spock’s silent nod is the end of it.

The incident, however, opens a whole new dimension of Spock’s personality for Jim. Over the next few weeks, now that he’s paying attention, he discovers he had hardly been singled out.

Spock is the object of cult worship in the science department and is probably the only one onboard who is blissfully unaware of it. He’s the only person willfully – please, dear God, it has to be willfully – oblivious to the sexual tension thick enough to be cut with a knife in the ship’s corridor filled with half-dressed crewmembers as he stands there in his regulation-freaking-perfect underwear, frowning at a report from Engineering. Jim has to drag him to his own quarters mostly for the sake of his own sanity.

Spock spends every free hour, sacrificing his sleep time as well for a week, to help Scott and his team overhaul Engineering after that nasty run in with the Nausicans, but doesn’t show up for the celebratory party, and when Uhura asks him about it, he only looks confused. When a security officer lies about having read the mission briefing and accidentally challenges a Kapellan to a duel, Spock calmly takes his place claiming that the lieutenant in question was acting on his orders. If Jim was there at the time, he’d have killed Spock himself, but he wasn’t, stuck high in orbit playing a deadly game of tag with a Klingon cruiser, and now has to make due with a freshly minted trade treaty favoring the Federation as a result, a security kid scared out of his wits who won’t stop apologizing, and a first officer who’d lost nearly three liters of irreplaceable Vulcan blood. McCoy screaming bloody murder is just a pleasant bonus.

All of that makes Jim wonder just what kind of ship Pike had been running back in the day that it gave Spock this kind of conditioning. Jim’s shady past left him with friends of morally dubious character in unexpected places. He’d read up on certain transcripts not included in Spock’s official Starfleet file and he can say with certainty that the guy who’d told the VSA to kindly fuck off and die when they badmouthed his mother is not this guy. Something doesn’t quite add up here.

And then, there’s the meld.

Part of the reason why Jim wanted Spock so badly as his first officer was that Spock had seen him under pressure, and, being Vulcan to boot, had proved that he could take Jim on his own merit, unhindered by prejudice. The other part was that during their short excursion to Nero’s ship Jim had sensed a crazy streak equal to his own, though tempered with experience.  
Spock’s actions on Verada made Jim think that he has, perhaps, overestimated the tempering part.

Spock melds with a stone – a _stone_ that he has somehow divined in a split second of brilliant insight is part of a living organism. 

Jim watches, spellbound, as the disgruntled planet calms down around them, soothed by the touch of Spock’s hands, green blood leaving streaks on the hard surface. He stares and stares, hardly remembering to breathe, trying a little hysterically to figure out how he’s going to put _that_ in a report to Starfleet.

God. No one would _believe_ him.

Spock looks at him, eyes bright and tinged ever so slightly with green. “I believe we can heal it.”

It takes a couple of minutes of stumbling explanations for Jim to realize that he’s offering a three-way mind-meld. 

Jim’s response is immediate and so powerful it shocks him. _Yes_ , his whole being is saying. _Please. Now_. He’s shaking with the effort not to show it so as not to freak Spock out. He’s freaked out plenty for both of them.

He doesn’t know why he wants it so badly. His one and only experience has been far from pleasant, to say the least. But if it offers even a glimpse beneath that stoic surface, then, no matter how uncomfortable, Jim can’t resist. Even Spock’s request for happy memories isn’t enough to deter him.

It’s nothing like he’d expected. The meld with the Ambassador had felt like being pushed onto the rails as a freight train rushed through his skull, breaking bones, at warp speed. Jim had felt nauseated for hours after.

Spock’s touch is… a brief moment of disorientation and then what almost feels like two streams coming gently together, their currents, while not dissolving in one another, becoming inseparable to the eye. Jim feels a sense of mild euphoria, like smiling for no reason, and experiences a split second of surprise that is not his own before it’s tucked away out of sight. He can feel Spock prompting him slightly and with a jolt of embarrassment concentrates on his memories. Spock pulls at them softly, one by one, only reaching for what Jim had put forward, never prying, handling them carefully but confidently like something infinitely fragile and precious. 

Spock is shielding. Jim doesn’t know why he didn’t think Spock would, but for whatever reason, even though there are no holes in his defenses, bits and pieces seep through. Jim doesn’t try, he wouldn’t know how, even if he’d wanted to, but he sees anyway.

Sun rising over the tall red dunes. A delicate-looking dark-haired woman smiling kindly down at him as he – _ouch_ – had just cut his finger on a thorn, roses blooming around them, the lush green of Earth vegetation against the stark red stone of Vulcan desert. A huge furry monster with three-inch fangs butting its head against his thigh asking for treats. A pretty girl with hair cropped too short for a Vulcan of respectable standing sliding her fingers gently through his in what is undeniably a kiss as a fountain sings sweetly somewhere just out of sight…

Abruptly, the images stop, and Jim has just enough restraint not to chase after them. Spock eases him out of the meld so gradually Jim doesn’t even notice. He just suddenly realizes he’s alone in his own head and almost opens his mouth to protest. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but the sudden sense of absence is too much, and he reaches without thinking to grab hold of Spock’s wrist, and Spock doesn’t pull away. It might be all part of the melding protocol, something like ‘Aftercare for Humans,’ but Jim doesn’t care, as long as he can feel the distant echo of that sweet welcoming warmth under his fingertips. 

They watch the sunset color the sky in shades of pink and lilac over the grey-green hills without saying a word, sharing the moment. At some point Jim realizes he’s no longer touching Spock, but when or how they had broken apart he couldn’t tell. He goes to bed that night with his head spinning and an uncomfortable suspicion that he may have just picked up a new and really unfortunate addiction.

And it really is unfortunate, because Verada marks a definite shift in his and Spock’s relationship, and it’s not for the better. 

Jim doesn’t catch on at once, but in a few days he notices something, and by the end of the week the pattern is all too clear. Abruptly, Spock’s shift schedule changes and he no longer has time to take breakfast with Jim. Whenever Jim is off duty, Spock is working at the lab, the number of sensitive experiments demanding his direct supervision suddenly escalating dramatically. If he’s not in the labs, he’s completing mission reports, which is a sure way to send Jim running. And if not that, he’s meditating and requires solitude. In short, he stops interacting with Jim off duty altogether.

From a few stray comments overheard in the corridors at shift change, Jim’s not the only one being canceled on, but it’s still hard to believe this is a coincidence. Either Spock had seen something utterly distasteful in that meld or just having observed Jim for all this time had come to the conclusion that he’s not worth the trouble. The resulting attitude is hard to miss, and it’s not like Jim can’t take the hint. That Spock doesn’t offer him the courtesy of an explanation is adding insult to injury, but it’s not as if he owes Jim one.

It’s probably one of those things you pick up when you progress through the ranks like a normal person, gathering experience and learning from your betters, Jim muses bitterly. It’s hard to imagine someone like Pike, a man who had begun the second Klingon war as a lowly ensign and emerged as the most successful battle commander of his generation, to be agonizing over the strange behavior of his first officer like a fifteen-year-old. Pike would have taken one look to tell personal from professional and would have known instantly to stay away from the first and tell Spock to cut it the hell out if it was the second. 

But Pike’s competence as captain had never been in question – no one would dare, whereas Jim’s is under constant review. With Spock being sort of in charge of it, it puts Jim in an untenable position of perpetual doubt.

Jim isn’t insecure by nature, but it’s not as if he can ignore his peculiar promotion history. He’s well aware of his shortcomings, but he’s learning, dammit. If it was just another armchair admiral expressing doubt, Jim wouldn’t have thought twice about it, it’s not like he cares anyway. But this is Spock, someone who lives the same life and fights the same battles, one of the few people Jim knows who really are the embodiment of everything Starfleet should stand for. Not on paper. In real life. To lose his respect without even knowing what the fault in him was is… disheartening. To say the least. 

Jim almost does call Pike, eager for some mentor-y advice, but stops himself when he realizes he’d be essentially calling to get reassurance. ‘ _My first officer seems to hate my guts and/or is secretly planning a mutiny, please send search parties to all ice planets in the sector to retrieve my body, sorry can’t be more specific’_ sounds a bit too dramatic for Jim’s taste. 

So Spock keeps his distance from the crew in general and Jim in particular. So he hadn’t before when they’d just shipped out. It’s not a crime and it’s not grounds for complaint. It’s not, in fact, even a problem hindering anyone’s performance, Jim’s included. He leaves it be or at least tries to.

They diffuse tension between two planetary systems gearing up for war and threatening the trade routes of the entire sector, Spock glued to Jim’s side the entire time, navigating him through the maze of diplomatic protocol and then helping him to deactivate the bomb that a rivaling faction had left in the negotiating chamber. They finish with seconds to spare.

They conduct a medical relief mission which leaves the entire crew exhausted but they do stop the epidemic, mostly due to McCoy, Chapel, Pechalat, and Spock working non-stop in utter isolation, because having beamed down to the planet’s surface the humans had been instantly infected. Spock stays on the grounds that he’s now a carrier, and no one calls him on his bullshit, because there are four of them and the medical equipment that the _Enterprise_ beams down against a virus that takes no prisoners. At the end it’s just Spock and McCoy working out the solution as the others succumb to the disease, and Spock pulling the doctor through when McCoy decides to test the vaccine on himself.

It takes a combined effort of Jim, Spock, Scott and Chekov to design and deploy a satellite system that will protect a planet with a pre-warp civilization from being obliterated by asteroids. They all pull triple shifts for nearly a week, and in the end it’s Jim pumped up on stimulants and piloting a heavily modified shuttlecraft with Spock navigating, and too many close calls to mention, and it’s the most at ease Jim has felt in days. But the moment the mission’s over Spock retreats with a cool, “You will have my report by morning, Captain” – as though they haven’t just saved each other’s lives so many times in the span of a few short hours.

“I don’t like it, it’s not natural,” McCoy grumbles over late-night drinks which Spock had been invited to and predictably didn’t show. “I’m serious, Jim. God knows I’ve never met anyone so emotionally fucked up, and I’ve met you, but that just ain’t right. He lost his mother, lost his entire goddamn planet, and he carries on like it’s tragic and all but had happened to somebody else.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Jim asks tiredly. “Reprimand him for being too efficient and not roaming the halls weeping instead?” 

McCoy gives him an odd look.

Jim shrugs. “It’s not like he’s my friend and I can, oh I don’t know, talk to him or something, is it?”

Perhaps it sounds a bit too bitter, because McCoy frowns at him and cuts him off. 

The thing is, Jim does read Spock’s reports to Starfleet. Spock cc’s him invariably whenever he sends them, has done so from the beginning, and it must have made a lot of people back at HQ unhappy, but his opening missive stated quite clearly that transparency is in the best interests of everyone involved, and it’s not like they could object to that, at least out loud. Serves them right for making a Vulcan spy for them, Jim thinks, but that’s just it. Spock’s reports, while brutally honest and almost uncomfortably meticulous, show no indication that he’s at all dissatisfied with Jim’s performance as captain. One could turn them inside out, read them backwards, stretch and twist, but although Spock never praises him outright one can’t miss the point – he doesn’t just not disagree with Jim’s decisions most of the time, he approves of them.

All the fewer reasons for Jim to complain, but he just doesn’t get it. There’s something there, he can tell, and he can’t let it go.

Spock can still play mental chess with Jim to guide him through a minefield – an honest to God actual minefield with the damn things woven into the fabric of subspace. The Academy field training is honestly such a joke, Jim thinks almost absently as Spock directs his attention. It’s one of the most intense experiences he has had to date, and something has to give, it can’t be just him who’s feeling this. ‘Chess, later, my quarters,’ he offers and hopes against all odds.

Instead of accepting the olive branch, Spock goes off to throw a tantrum loud enough to echo through the whole ship as he nearly bites Hendorff’s head of for something that couldn’t possibly have been his fault. It pisses Jim off to no end, and nearly makes him lose it. He doesn’t quite tell Spock everything he wants to, but it’s a near thing.

Three days later on yet another away mission gone awry – seriously, why do these things always end up being a trap – Hendorff knocks Jim down to the ground as the first shots are fired and threatens to sit on him if Jim tries to move, while the security squad methodically clears the perimeter. He absolutely refuses to budge, and more than that, there’s not a trace of moral conflict of any kind present on his face, despite Jim swearing violently and threatening him with court-martial.

At roughly the same moment Jim has an epiphany and remembers that Vulcans, no matter how pissed off, don’t throw temper tantrums and realizes that Spock is even more of a manipulative son of a bitch than Jim had given him credit for _and_ that he’d gotten his way yet again without even being there.

It leaves Jim shaking with rage and for days afterwards he can’t even look at Spock without wanting to smash his face into the nearest hard surface. Which is of course when the order to go back to Earth hits them, and Jim’s abrupt but not entirely unjustified descent into gaping paranoia escalates in leaps. 

He knows what’s coming or thinks that he does. The moment the _Enterprise_ assumes orbit around Earth, he’s dragged into a debriefing from hell that starts but never really finishes, with progressively more people coming in to dissect every time he’d used the head in the past six months. Jim handles it fine. He’s not Vulcan, but, despite what people like to imply, he can get a grip on himself even in the face of correctly worded but unmistakable attacks on his competence, and Uhura’s time spent coaching him in etiquette hadn’t been wasted. He’s smiling through gritted teeth, but he’s handling it. 

Until the moment they start throwing lines from Spock’s reports at him, and Jim sees red.

He doesn’t think he’s physically attacked anyone, but that’s about the only point he can put in his favor by the time it’s over. He doesn’t remember much, has difficulty seeing past the red haze, but Spock’s cutting words slice through it easily like the weapons they are. Funny, how he’d missed it when he’d read them before in the privacy of his quarters. 

As he’s finally released, a friend approaches him bringing a bit of gossip that seals it. Jim beams back to the _Enterprise_ and before he knows anything, he’s yelling something ugly and idiotic in Spock’s face, not so much reaching the boiling point as shooting right past it.

He was right, and how. 

The demure, humble shadow-of-a-shadow character from the past weeks has been an act, and Spock had never in his life been that person. His defenses are about as shy and quiet as a Klingon battle cruiser, and at long last, after weeks if not months of absence, Jim sees the same man who had the guts to throw him off the ship, which would have been a ballsy move if it was justified, and an even ballsier one since it wasn’t. Jim almost leaps forward, because finally _they’re getting somewhere_ , when the essence of Spock’s words penetrates and freezes him in place. 

Pike. Freaking _Pike_. 

So many things make perfect sense all of a sudden, it makes Jim’s head spin. He’s way too slow to respond and nowhere near formulating a coherent answer anyway, but he can’t even care about that right now, even as Spock storms out. 

McCoy opens his mouth then closes it, and Jim gets it, because there’s nothing Bones can say right now that he isn’t already thinking. After a short consideration, McCoy follows after Spock, and Jim wishes him luck wholeheartedly as he sinks into a vacated chair, an hysterical laugh bubbling out of him. 

Uhura regards him with concern, then something in her face solidifies and she slaps him hard across the face. Jim nods in relief and gratitude.

“You really didn’t know,” she says, shocked. 

He can tell by the look on her face that she’s thinking quite probably of all those missions where she’d assumed…

Fuck her. 

He’s not actually incompetent, so he doesn’t say it. He can’t really blame her anyway. It’s been sitting in plain sight all along. And it’s not like Spock was wrong – Jim has been a bit self-absorbed lately, okay, maybe more than a bit – but the point is, that’s not the only reason he’d missed this. It’s just that the very idea of _Spock_ , this Spock, their resident Mr. Integrity, being involved in something so – _daring_ , so if not scandalous exactly then at the very least _outré_ – is hard to wrap his mind around. 

Oh, who is he kidding, the combination of Spock plus Pike plus sex is making him cross-eyed with all the possibilities and just, yeah. He tries to think of something intelligent to say. What comes out is, “Pike _broke up_ with him?”

Uhura rolls her eyes, some of her tension melting away. “Sure, that’s the takeaway here, why not.”

Jim looks at her. “I just can’t believe I learned four-dimensional battle strategy from that man, is all.”

She snorts, her eyes dancing. “You’re a horrible human being.”

“But I mean, right?”

After a pause, she says, “He would never betray you like that, you get that, right? It’s not about you even. It’s just – he’s not that person.”

Jim sighs. “I know. Let’s just say I’ve suddenly acquired brain damage and leave it at that.”

He’s uncomfortably aware of her eyes on him, studying. He has a sneaking suspicion she misses nothing. 

“Jim,” Uhura says, leaning over the table. “Look, I—”

He lifts up a hand, halting her. “Don’t. Please.” Meeting her eyes, he grins ruefully. “I’m clinging to the illusion that I have some dignity left. A pity party would kind of kill it.”

Her lips twitch. “You know,” she says apropos of nothing, “Spock’s not the only one who can pick and choose his assignments. Do you know how many offers I have to field every week for your entire senior staff?” She pauses, thoughtful. “Except Scotty. That kind of crazy takes dedication, so I think he’s all yours whether you want him or not. The rest of us choose to be here.”

He shakes his head. “I’d marry you, but I have this mental condition. It makes me say horrible things to people I care most about.”

“Oh, I noticed.” She smirks, rising to her feet. Her hand slides over his shoulder, squeezing. “Captain. Believe it or not, you being paranoid and accusing him of every sin imaginable isn’t the problem. He’ll forgive you. He’s probably already talked himself into seeing the logic in your actions. _That’s_ the problem. You understand what I’m saying?”

He looks up at her slowly, frowning. “I think I’m beginning to.”

She nods sharply, glancing away. “Do something about it. Because he sure as hell isn’t letting me in.”

Alone, Jim looks longingly at the replicators, wishing not for the first time they’d produced alcohol.

\--

Spock accepts his apology with depressing ease.

It’s especially obvious after Admiral Tokugawa provides an explanation as to why Jim had been subjected to an interview from hell yesterday. It makes Jim feel like a complete idiot, but since he’s intimately familiar with that particular experience since the night before it’s not making much of a dent now. Next to his panic when Spock arrives suddenly and approaches the admiral directly it barely even registers.

It’s not that he wants for Spock to hold a grudge, but he would have understood that. His easy, somewhat lifeless acceptance, almost quoting Uhura verbatim when he says he can’t fault Jim’s logic – that, Jim doesn’t get and likes even less.

It doesn’t escape him now – oh, the irony – that Pike is watching Spock throughout the meeting with an expression of a man who’s asking himself what the hell he’d been thinking. It sets Jim’s teeth on edge, for reasons he prefers not to dive in just now, but Pike is not his problem at the moment. Spock is.

They ship out the same night, as soon as the Torian ambassador and his obnoxious daughter beam aboard. The girl is sixteen and a toxic combination of spoiled, not entirely unintelligent, and clinically bored, and she latches onto Jim the moment she arrives. The week of journey ahead is going to be fun, he reflects fatalistically. McCoy sends him a look that clearly says, _‘Karma’_ and hightails out of the transporter room before the proverbial dust could settle though not before he can give a thoughtful look to Spock’s back as the commander escorts the ambassador out.

Spock looks the way he always does lately, and Jim gets nothing when their eyes meet, not a single spark of – anything. Jim grits his teeth because Uhura was right, and he needs to speak to McCoy yesterday.

When he finally manages to drop Amira at her quarters for the night, McCoy is already waiting for him in the captain’s lounge, which Jim has long turned into a bar, a bottle of Andorian ale glowing promisingly on the table. 

“I know you talked to him,” Jim says without preamble, reaching for a glass. “Tell me he told you something, because I didn’t get jack shit.”

“We’ll get to that.” McCoy watches him somberly. “First, though, should I even ask? What the hell is wrong with you? The last time I saw you fly off the handle like that was when Commander Van’qress threatened to expel you over that damn field trip our first year at the Academy. You went all berserk on him and tried to—”

Jim winces and holds up a hand. “I remember.” Not his proudest moment.

“You’re not that feral little creature raised by wolves anymore, Jim. You haven’t been in years. What the hell has gotten into you?”

“I don’t know.” Jim rubs a hand over his face tiredly. “Look, I screwed up. I’m known for that. I don’t think that’s the greatest mystery in the world, certainly not to you, and I’d rather not have another lecture on how I’m obsessed with proving myself right now, if it’s all the same to you. I mean, you’re right, I get it, I am aware of that aspect of my personality, you can have that one checked on your list. I’ll do better, but I think we have bigger fish to fry right now, don’t you?”

McCoy makes a face at him. “Well, as long as you’re aware.”

“I didn’t actually sleep through Psych 101, you know. Well, not all of it anyway. It’s just – look, I don’t know. He had all the information when he signed up. He had access to my file, the unabridged version, and he’d seen me in action, the good and the bad. He knew what he was getting into – and he signed up anyway. I thought that meant something. And we were getting somewhere. I know I didn’t imagine it, and it wasn’t all in my head. Hell, the old man implied as much, and I thought he was off his rocker, what with switching universes and all. But then Spock and I, this Spock – my Spock, we just – worked. It was working. And not just professionally. And then it was like he’d thrown a switch somewhere or something. Like he discovered I had a really embarrassing STD. I guess I just let it get to me, more than I should have, and didn’t notice.” He groans, hand tightening around his glass reflexively. “And I sound like a thirteen-year-old with a crush now, wonderful.”

“Hm.” McCoy looks thoughtful. “I mean, you do, and trust me, I’m trying really hard to ignore that. But you’re also not wrong, Jim. I just don’t believe it’s personal in the sense that you seem to be thinking.”

Jim frowns at him. “I don’t understand.”

“Well, minus the teen angst part, Uhura says the same thing. You know how close they are, whatever they’re calling it, but, according to her, for weeks now he’s taken to avoiding her like it’s an Olympic sport or something. Natalie says the same thing. He’s her mentor, and it used to be all deep long conversations about the nature of the universe and all that, then suddenly he doesn’t have the time, and there’s no explanation. Hell, he used to be a lot more engaging with _me_ when he first came aboard. He used to geek out with Scotty and Chekov and help Sulu with that crazy garden of his. It’s been weeks, and they stopped asking. Any one of us I could have dismissed as a fluke or a personality clash, but all of us? At the same time?”

“You’re saying it’s not just me he’s pulling away from?”

“I’m saying he’s well on his way to proving that this particular man is an island. And it gets better. The crew hardly ever sees him outside duty hours, and it’s not that he’s hiding in his room all the time. He’s just never off duty anymore, have you noticed that?” 

“Now that you mention it—”

“I checked his roster. He’s working far too many shifts for the health and safety regs to be satisfied, and the guy who makes everyone’s schedule has to be aware of that, right? Yet curiously, there are never any red flags in the system that would call for my intervention. It’s an automated system, Jim. It should see it, and it just doesn’t. It’s like magic.”

Or an A7 computer expert thinking he’s being clever, Jim thinks grimly. This would be child’s play for Spock. He could do it in his sleep. Which, apparently, he no longer does, great.

“And then there are the away missions and how for the last two months they end with him in my Medbay 94.5% of the time. Oh yeah, I checked, you’d better believe it. His injuries are getting more severe, too, though it’s not as clear a progression. You didn’t notice, because you’ve never served on a starship before, so you just think that’s how away missions always are. But we’re not first-generation space cowboys and there are protocols in place to minimize that kind of thing – or we’d just run out of people. And you know what’s funny? Spock _had_ served on a starship before, a full tour of duty with Pike. So he _should_ know better, yet his injury rate doesn’t bear it out. The only reason he’s not worse than you, statistically speaking, is because of your damn allergies. If he wasn’t Vulcan who does everything, you know, _logically_ , one might almost think that he’s in a hurry to give his life heroically in the line of duty. You seeing the picture yet, Captain?”

Jim does. Oh, how he does. His hands grip the edge of the table to stop shaking.

“Bones,” he says, voice hoarse. “How did we miss this? How did we miss _this_?”

“You really didn’t sleep through Psych 101, huh,” McCoy mutters. “Good. Makes things easier. The thing is, it only paints a clear picture until you remember he’s Vulcan.” 

“What does that have to do—”

“Vulcans don’t get depressed. It’s a biological fact. Depression in most cases stems from unprocessed emotions and Vulcans de-clutter their emotional space every day during meditation. It’s not that they _can’t_ get depressed, it’s that they _don’t_. Do you know why it’s such anathema for a Vulcan to react emotionally in public? It’s like if a human confessed he didn’t brush his teeth in the morning. Gross, and unhygienic, lacking in basic competence. And Spock, for all the warm feelings I bear him, is a very good Vulcan, so I’m pretty sure he’s not slacking in that department.”

“He lost his mother. Lost his planet,” Jim says slowly. “And he’s not processing it—”

“Because he’s not aware it’s there,” McCoy finishes grimly. “It’s the only explanation. He doesn’t have a bond to stabilize him; I asked. It’s like that time on the bridge all over again, only this time in slow, slow motion.”

“And you’re not pursuing this officially,” Jim says, “because a depressed officer is a danger to himself and his crewmates.”

“That.” McCoy nods. “But also – I have no proof. So he stopped socializing with his human friends? Tough, Vulcans don’t have friends anyway. Is his work slipping? Not even a little bit, in fact, he’s more efficient than ever. And as for away missions, he argues command judgment and mission priorities, and you’d have a hell of a time proving otherwise. I’d have grounded him a long time ago if I could create so much as reasonable doubt.”

“But you know you’re right.”

“Of course, I know I’m right. And no, I don’t want to put it on record. They’d drag him to Starfleet Medical in a straight jacket, and he’d never see active service again. Pretty sure they won’t have a clue how to help him, either.”

“But you do.”

McCoy looks at him. And looks. 

“Oh, hell no.” Jim straightens in his seat. “You can’t ask me to do that again.”

“He _engages_ with you, Jim.” McCoy spreads his palms out. “You want to know why I didn’t yell at you for that display yesterday? Because your insanity might as well have been divine intervention. He pulls away from anyone who might claim even a hint of a relationship with him, but he responds to you. It’s like, no matter how far down the rabbit hole he’d fallen, you can pull him back, because he _can’t help reacting to you_. For the love of God, don’t ask me why, I don’t want to touch that one, ever.”

“Oh, and I do?”

“I think we both know that you do or, for one thing, you wouldn’t have your panties in a twist over this. Which reminds me,” – McCoy’s eyes narrow on him unnervingly – “are you in love with him?”

Jim snorts alcohol out of his nose. “ _What?_ ” He gropes for a napkin blindly. “Where did _that_ come from?”

“Oh, please.” McCoy leans back in his chair, rolling his eyes. “Like I haven’t been there for the whole four miserable months of you going after Laurel freaking Lane. The way you’re acting now beats even that. Also let’s not pretend that he’s not exactly your type.”

“I don’t have a type. Everybody’s my type.”

“You might not care for shapes and sizes, but you do have a type, Jim. Hot, smart, doesn’t buy into your bullshit, knows at least twenty-seven ways to kill you, and could get away with it, too. Did I miss anything?”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted.”

McCoy snorts. “Like we both don’t know the answer to that. And that’s my problem, Jim. At this point, I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who can reach him – but. I can’t set you loose on him, if I know you’d be pursuing your own agenda. He’s a patient in my care, whether he knows it or not. You can see, can’t you, Captain, how this creates a conflict for me?”

Jim nods slowly, thinking. 

“I do. But Bones, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t have any agenda for him. I just – want him to get through this.” He gazes unseeingly into space for a few moments. “I know what he’s going through. I didn’t see it before, but now it’s so obvious. I should have recognized… Well.” He shakes his head, fighting the memories off. “I don’t have an agenda. But if you think I can help, let me help.” 

McCoy sighs. “Funny choice of words. Aw hell. Let’s get this business with the Torians over with; I don’t think it’s a good idea to jostle him in the middle of the mission. But the moment it’s over, we’re doing this.”

Jim agrees. It gives him a little time to prepare.

\--

Except there’s no time at all as it turns out, and it goes from bad to worse in an instant.

Arishuh explodes in their faces when Jim’s head is still spinning from the way Spock looked at him the night before across the chess table with eyes that saw entirely too much, looked too deep, stripped him raw and naked. _Seeing him_. It leaves Jim reeling and Spock gives him no time to recover from that.

Bones is right, but he is also wrong. Jim isn’t the only one who could tip Spock over. When push comes to shove, some unknown Arishuh girl who doesn’t even know Spock is there can pull it off just fine.

For breathless, countless moments, Jim stands stock still in suspended animation watching Spock go through rows of guards like a knife through butter. He should be terrified, shocked, disgusted. He feels…

Excitement. 

His chest is full to bursting, adrenaline making every blood vessel in his body vibrate. His rational mind is shoved back, relegated to watching, as he pushes and pulls at the crowd separating them, ready to claw his way out of his own skin to fly into the battle, to join, to protect, to—

Spock turns and locks eyes with him just as Jim manages to break through the crowd, and Jim freezes. For a moment that lasts a lifetime, space and time disappear, melt away as though they never were, and he has no lungs to breathe, no air to fill them, no body. There is only him and Spock looking at each other across a field full of bodies, never touching but locked in an embrace more intimate than sex, more real than anything Jim has ever known, and it’s—

Over. 

Spock is finally subdued and dragged away, and Jim has to remember how to be small again, contained within his body that for just a handful of seconds feels disorienting and ill-fitting like clothes he’s outgrown. He has to remember how to be Jim Kirk, captain of the _Enterprise_ , whose first officer is in trouble and who has a mission to complete. He will never forget the moment though. 

Getting himself arrested is no challenge at all for someone with Jim’s history, and taunting the guards into throwing him in with Spock is child’s play. Spock, though. Spock is a whole other matter.

Taunting him back then on the bridge made Jim feel nauseated, but he hardly even knew Spock then. Now it turns his insides into bile. He hates himself so much he can’t stand it, and if Spock so much as looked at him, he’d have noticed, but Spock can’t. He’s too busy holding himself together and it’s a losing battle. Would have been a losing battle even without Jim there, but with Jim Spock stands no chance.

Jim feels his own heart explode with pain when Spock cries out at long last, every last defense smashed to pieces, finally experiencing the full force of his loss. There’s enough rationale in Jim left to wonder if this is what a heart attack feels like, and wouldn’t it be just great if he died here now before Bones could get to them. Spock would never forgive himself when he knows anything again. Spock…

“I can never go back,” Spock says with agonizing slowness, like a child trying the words out for the first time. “I can never go home.”

Jim blinks and blinks again, but Spock’s eyes are dry.

“She liked roses,” Spock says, and Jim almost says, ‘I know.’ There’s no way for him to know, and yet.

Bones is one sneaky bastard, because this wasn’t just for Spock, oh no. Jim hadn’t realized just how much guilt he’s been carrying over Vulcan until Spock says, “There was nothing you could have done, Jim. There was nothing you could have done.”

Words slip easily then. He’s never been able to talk about Tarsus, not really. He told his mother what she needed to know, but he’d never really talked. It takes no effort at all right now, and it’s almost a shame, because there is so much unguarded, unprotected compassion and understanding in Spock’s eyes _and_ at a moment like this that it would have made the hardest effort worth it. 

Jim knows he shouldn’t revel in it, but he can’t help it. He feels it like a cord, a physical, tangible thread between them, a connecting line he can almost see out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t want to let it go.

He holds Spock, and Spock _lets_ him. Jim is hardly aware of anything either of them is saying, overwhelmed by grief and elation all at once. He doesn’t care what it would look like when they beam them up. He’s dimly aware that he should care, but he’s also certain that only a force of nature of some sort could make him let go of Spock just then. They fall asleep eventually against each other, which is of course exactly when Chekov and Scotty figure it out and beam them out of there.

McCoy doesn’t say anything as they are being treated for their many injuries. He adds a sedative to Spock’s immunity booster without asking and watches him drift off before turning to Jim.

“Are you okay?”

Jim’s eyes are still on Spock’s face, a pained expression on it even in his chemically induced unconsciousness. He wants to smooth the hard lines over with his fingers.

“I’m fine,” he says slowly, or rather hears himself say. 

McCoy’s hand grips his shoulder. “The crew will come to check on him soon enough, and you shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t see you like this. Go to bed, get some sleep, get some food into your stomach. You did great, and I know it was no picnic. Go rest, Jim, and then, for the love of God, get your act together. You’re the goddamn captain, and I’m sorry but you don’t get days off from that.”

“I’m fine, Bones.”

“I’d believe that if you could actually tear your eyes away from him for a second. Go. I don’t want to sedate you, too.”

Jim knows not to argue and he knows not to ask. He marvels instead as he walks along the airy white corridors how in a span of a few short days everything he knew about himself has changed. Just as he was the catalyst for Spock’s delayed reaction, so Spock was for him. Going from picking up pretty cadets in bars to acing four-dimensional strategy and landing in a captain’s chair seems almost trivial to be considered any kind of leap, compared to the rabbit hole he’d fallen in just now. He went in as Jim Kirk, captain extraordinaire, a smartass with a heart of gold, Komack’s pain in the butt, and yes, a bit of an asshole the kind you love to hate. He came out as… well.

He’d just experienced hallucinations which he’s pretty sure weren’t hallucinations at all, but rather a real-life out of body experience, and he wasn’t even dying. What he’d seen of himself in those split seconds wasn’t going anywhere. Meditation was a required course at the Academy which Jim faked to pass, same as ninety-nine percent of the cadet body. Now he wishes he’d paid more attention. He’s lightheaded and feels constantly surprised by his own arms and legs, mostly to find them there, answering to commands. He keeps reaching for Spock without thinking and has to remind himself to walk in the opposite direction.

It fades gradually over the next few days. Jim knows he should be relieved, but part of him misses the experience. He never thought anything within himself could surprise him until whatever happened between him and Spock had shown him otherwise.

Spock doesn’t bounce back at once, not that Jim expected him to, but he does begin to heal. Those first days are a bittersweet, tender ache. Watching him go about his duties with his shields dropped, completely unguarded, unfiltered, is a precious thing. 

Spock reinstates his controls slowly, but the crew sense the change. They approach him hesitantly at first, and then it’s an avalanche, a tidal wave. They turn to him as he enters the room like flowers opening toward the sun. Suddenly the whole ship is smiling, jokes are flying around, things get miraculously unstuck, projects shoved to the backburner are completed in a cascade of creative solutions raining down from an inspired crew. It’s like the ship itself is high. Jim didn’t realize how much he’d missed this, how _normal_ it actually is until it comes back.

Spock himself naturally notices nothing, completely oblivious to the effect he’s having on the entire ship. It’s slightly frustrating, but Jim cuts him some slack. If anyone in the history of anything had a good reason to be focusing entirely on his own responses for the time being, it would be Spock right now. The crew benefits whether he’s conscious of or not, so it’s only fair to leave him be.

The best parts, though, Jim gets for himself. Spock looking at him with open interest and not a slight measure of appreciation. Spock actually _flirting_ back in a subtle yet undeniable way that nearly makes Jim trip over his own feet the first time he sees it. He suddenly understands what it must have been like for Pike all those years ago, when Spock was younger, barely out of his teens, and _naturally like that all the time_. Jim never expected to feel sympathy for the man, but damn, that’s just not playing fair.

“How are the sessions going?” Jim asks McCoy one evening, watching Spock talk to Pechalat and a few of her minions across the officers’ mess. Whatever they’re projecting over the PADD seems to have his complete attention.

McCoy frowns. “You know I can’t talk about that. Doctor-patient confidentiality—”

Jim rolls his eyes. “Jesus, I’m not asking for details. Just – how’s he doing?”

McCoy relaxes slightly, glancing over at the other table. “He’s a stubborn bastard is how he’s doing,” he grumbles. “But he’s determined. You’ve got to hand it to the guy, once he’s committed himself to something he doesn’t brake for anything.”

“So he’s going to be fine?”

“I believe so. We haven’t reached the hardest part yet, but I think – yeah, I think he’s ready for it.” He glances at Jim curiously. “He doesn’t talk to you? I thought he might.”

Jim shakes his head. “He stopped avoiding me, and he’s friendly enough, but he doesn’t talk about this. Not that I blame him.”

“Hm. And how are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Really, Jim? I’m not Vulcan and I’m not compulsively oblivious like some people, so is this really how you want to play this?”

Jim sighs. “Look, what do you want from me? I’m not Pike. I can handle this.”

McCoy’s eyes narrow. “You’re not Pike, on that we both agree.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Jim’s handling it fine. Until Spock locks himself on a ship with an engine about to explode that prevents transporter lock. 

At this point, that Jim wants to kill him when he does beam back isn’t surprising. The ease with which he forgives Spock isn’t surprising, either, but it catches him off guard anyway. Bones, bless his meddling, interfering, snooping heart, was right. Not that Jim would admit it under torture or anything. 

Jim sits there, drinking the coffee Spock has brought him, smiling, talking, playing the damn piano, and all the while feels his heart blown wide open, swelling with it, too tight, too full. He had no idea it would feel that way, his pulse filling the entire room, the drugging sweetness and gripping pain, with every breath in and out. He never realized it could be so physical, so undeniable, so – _right there_. He’s surprised Spock doesn’t catch it, shocked that it’s not evident to every person in the room.

And with it, comes acceptance. He wants Spock. He’s always wanted Spock and probably always will, but if they never go there, it’s fine. Jim kind of can’t get over that part. He used to pick up strangers every night, sometimes more than one a night. He used to think that ‘love’ was a pretty word for ‘sex’ or a term not to be used when carefully not thinking of the tragic history of his parents. Love was a purely physical dimension.

Yet, if Spock never wants it from him, it’s no big deal. It sounds surreal in his own head, but he can feel the truth of it in his bones. Having Spock next to him, breathing, happy – or at any rate as happy as a Vulcan can be, is enough. 

Maybe he should have Bones check him over for mental trauma or alien influence, because it’s not like he can recognize this person thinking these thoughts, knowing this. But he’s pretty sure his brain patterns are his own. Has he truly changed? Or did meeting Spock unlock something in him he never knew was there?

Spock flirts back and lets Jim touch him, and Jim realizes that this sweet tugging sense of longing might be a permanent part of his life from now on. He feels strangely okay with that.

\--

Spock, for his part, does his level best to shake Jim out of his upcoming sainthood by reminding Jim just how physical a person he can be in the form of yet another high profile former lover. 

Fine, strictly speaking, T’Pring had never been his lover, but that does little to appease Jim. She might be the most exquisite woman Jim has ever seen, and if only she was just a pretty face, oh no. Add to that staggering intelligence and commitment to the Vulcan way that makes Spock swoon quietly, even if it’s at his own expense, and it’s a deadly combination. 

“He sure knows how to pick ‘em,” McCoy mutters, echoing Jim’s thoughts. 

Jim watches through the glass the way Spock acts around her and feels woefully inadequate. They look like a royal couple, flawless etiquette and quiet confidence, almost regal with each other, yet completely unaffected. Spock was born for this, Jim realizes, feeling something cold and slimy coil in the pit of his stomach. Jim was born for backwater bars and bottles flying at his head. Spock was born and bred for this.

He must have said it out loud, because McCoy cuffs him on the back of the head. “Yeah, and if he’d chosen this, he’d be dead right now, wouldn’t he? And you’re not chopped liver, Jim. Get it together.”

But Bones is shaken, too, Jim can tell. No matter how integral a part of the _Enterprise_ crew Spock is, he’s always stood apart, and this is why. They’ve always seen him out of his true context. 

The three of them go to Jim’s cabin for a drink and a debrief of sorts, and Jim can’t stop watching Spock, looking for signs of him adjusting, leveling down to this environment. He finds none. Spock is as natural with them as he was with T’Pring, and if there is a difference, Jim can’t pinpoint it. He doesn’t get it. He knows not to look the gift horse in the mouth, but it’s unnerving.

The difference does come at last at the very end. Spock reaches to touch his hand and it’s not a well-trained, ritual-dictated press of his fingers he’d exchanged with T’Pring. It’s nervous, definitely unscripted and almost shy, almost – dares Jim say it, human. As though Spock is afraid Jim will reject him. Jim’s heart melts helplessly at this display of vulnerability, which Spock manages to miss completely, but Bones doesn’t, if his _‘dear-God-help-me’_ eyeroll is any indication. So Jim might be the tiniest bit whipped, so what. 

“Did you ever think that just telling him might be easier?” McCoy asks the next morning at breakfast. “It was amusing at first, but now it’s honest to God just painful.”

“You don’t think I’ve been obvious enough?” Jim grumbles, frowning. “It’s not like I can help it or anything. He’s the damn science officer, he can’t not have noticed.”

“It’s a double negative and it’s a slippery slope, Jim. Wasn’t it like a motto of you command track jocks to always be clear and precise?”

“I’m an engineering major, command’s just a hobby.”

“You had a double major, you cretin. Dabbling in engineering doesn’t give you an excuse to go through life saying ‘if it’s on fire it’s on purpose.’”

“There’s a method to my madness.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

There’s no denying though, that just at the moment Jim’s life has taken an abrupt turn from noble and spiritually high places to a daytime holovid sitcom. He can’t be certain that Spock knows and it bugs him more than he’s willing to admit. So, of course, instead of following a very reasonable, very _adult_ advice, Jim snatches the first opportunity to really get that fire going. 

Tom Kalle is a gift from God. He arrives prepackaged and perfect at the exact moment Jim is getting desperate, because Spock would come this close and yet no closer and it’s driving Jim up the wall. He thought he was better than this, but apparently he isn’t. It’s mostly Spock’s own reaction to Kalle – the slight widening of his eyes, the momentarily arrested expression – that seals it for Jim. The lieutenant has just volunteered to become his new best friend.

It’s juvenile and undignified and makes Jim feel mildly nauseated. He hates Spock just a little for forcing him to come down to this level, even though he’s fully aware that Spock didn’t exactly hold a phaser to his head. Whatever, details. By day three, Jim feels disgusted enough to drop it, except – it starts working. 

In complete shock, Jim watches as Spock’s eyes narrow when Jim slings an arm over Kalle’s shoulders or gives him a playful nudge. When Jim reminds Kalle to call him ‘Jim’ instead of ‘Captain’ within Spock’s earshot, Spock actually freezes for a whole second before continuing on his way. Soon enough it progresses to Spock developing an urgent need to be elsewhere the moment Jim and Kalle walk into a room. It’s glorious in a masochistic kind of way, because the quickly concealed hurt on Spock’s face makes Jim want to punch himself, badly.

Kalle’s constant company though it punishment enough. He’s a nice enough guy, dazzling heroics and all, but he’s _mind-numbingly boring_ , no extra dimension to him. The man eats his vegetables because they are nutritious, for fuck’s sake. For a while, it’s amusing to see his crew’s reaction to him, but even that gets old fast, and by the end of the day Jim is close to killing himself.

What’s worse, McCoy is decidedly not amused and refuses to speak to Jim about anything not work-related. So does Sulu, though he’s more subtle about it. Uhura and – what the hell? – Natalie Pechalat glare at him when they think Jim isn’t looking. Scotty gets a half-puzzled half-pitying look on his face when he spots them together, like he thinks Jim is terminally sick or something.

T’Pring takes the cake though when she runs into Jim, by himself for once, in a lower deck corridor by accident and out of absolutely nowhere declares, “Spock is a better example of humanity than you are, Captain Kirk.” She doesn’t punch him, but she manages to be way more terrifying than Spock in that there is no flicker of anything in her gorgeous almond-shaped eyes, just deadly focus.

And fine, Jim has had enough, too, but he doesn’t quite know how to get himself out of it. He might have matured as a captain, but in some areas, it would seem, he hasn’t done much growing at all. 

Spock saves him like he always saves him, this time by pouring undeserved but welcome revelations. There was a reason he couldn’t leave Kalle well enough alone, a professional reason as it turns out. Federation Security. Crap. _Spock_ running errands for F-Sec. After what Jim has just pulled, Spock dumps a load of information into his hands that could end Spock’s career and have him court-martialed for real this time. He doesn’t hesitate when he tells Jim. He tops it with as good as admitting that he was jealous. 

Jim all but collapses into a chair the moment Spock leaves the room. He doesn’t deserve him. His own actions are suddenly crystal clear to him, and oh, but this wasn’t about making Spock jealous at all. It was a test. Let me show you how ugly I can be. Let me show you the ugliest, pettiest, shallowest part of me and see you turn away as you should have long ago. Let me show you my true colors, because I can’t stand it if you find out for yourself.

Except Spock doesn’t turn away. He forgives Jim. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t get it, but forgives Jim readily without being asked. Jim can be incredibly stupid sometimes, but it doesn’t take a genius to know what that means. Spock is as deep in this as Jim is and about as fucked up about it.

It gets better. Jim’s mother might be the most horrible human being who ever lived and only part of that is explained by the _Kelvin_ , and Spock is trying to be nice to her. She’s trying to poison him, and _he’s trying to be nice to her._ He’s drastically outmatched and seems to know it, but tries valiantly anyway, like there is no other possible choice. It could be out of respect for his commanding officer, it might even be what Spock believes himself, but Jim has seen him (politely) telling the admirals where to stick it too many times to know that it’s not that at all. 

Unfortunately, he’s not the only one to have noticed, because Winona just won’t let it go. After Jim wakes up in Medbay the second time after Bones puts him under after someone tried to blow them all up and left Jim to deal with his favorite injury in the world – regrowing lung tissue, Winona is still there, glaring daggers at his first officer.

Spock isn’t slow. Jim doesn’t know what happened between them when he was out, but Spock is no longer trying to please her, which proves that his learning curve is pretty damn high. There’s a barely noticeable marker of stress in his voice, but between T’Pring on one side and Jim’s mother on the other, Jim kind of sees it. 

“Look, would you lay off of Spock?” he asks when he has the power of speech restored. “He’s got a job to do and you’re not helping.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought Vulcans were excellent multitaskers.”

“Mom,” Jim groans. “No, seriously, what’s your problem? Because it can’t be that he attacked me after I provoked him. You’d have hated half of Iowa and the better part of three other counties if that was it.”

“I do hate half of Iowa and the better part of three other counties, but that has nothing to do with you.”

“What then? Is it that he kicked me off the ship that one time? Because that was ages ago and you seriously need to get over it.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jim, you think _that’s_ my problem? I’d have shipped you off to some monster-infested ice planet myself, years ago, if I thought I could get away with it.”

“Thanks ever so.” 

“Jesus _Christ_ , kid! Spock could have horns and a tail, for all I care, and I’d say have fun with it and don’t let him poke through anything vital.”

“Then what—”

“You are my _child_ , Jim! You’re supposed to be smarter than me! You’re supposed to learn from my mistakes, not repeat them.”

“Mom—”

“Let me tell you, at the rate you’re going, in no time at all you’re going to find yourself on a medevac shuttle, giving birth to something pointy-eared and terribly cute, while he’d be out there _blowing himself to pieces_ trying to take out the next thing that has showed up to eat you! I know I’ve barely done any parenting with you and none of it right, but trust me when I say, kiddo, you don’t want that life.”

It takes Jim a while to get over that. Finally, he says, “If it’s any consolation, I really don’t think I can get pregnant. I asked Bones on four separate occasions just to make sure.”

Winona sighs. “It’s not funny, Jim.”

“No, it’s not,” he agrees. “But, Mom, you’re torturing me with this like you think somehow I still have a choice.”

“Of course, you have a choice! It’s not one of those ‘you break it, you buy it’ situations we talked about when you were eight.”

“I didn’t break him.”

“Fine, Nero broke him, you helped. I’m sorry and all, but it doesn’t mean—”

“Spock’s _hurt_ , not broken, Mom. You don’t know him. He’s strong. He’s stronger than any of us know, than he knows himself, I’ll bet. I can’t imagine anything that would actually break him.”

“Oh, Jim.” Winona sounds defeated and sad all of a sudden. “Can’t you?”

And that – that shuts Jim up for hours, and even Bones is surprised to find his patient suddenly so compliant with his orders.

He steals a hoverchair and goes to find Spock. Spock stands up straight and looks him in the eye, no shields, no barriers, no filters, and speaks with the serenity of someone who lives and dies in absolute truth.

“Captain. I am not. Emotionally compromised. Over you.”

Jim sinks into his chair like he’s been shot and he can’t process it for hours. It’s not until he gives the final order that turns Spock into the bait for one of the most powerful and dangerous criminals this side of the Alpha quadrant that Jim gets it. 

He’s not emotionally compromised over Spock, either. For men like them, duty will always come first, and they will do what they must no matter what personal cost they pay. He will send Spock to die as his captain if he has to, if there is no other way, and Spock will go. That doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make what Jim feels, as opposed to Captain Kirk, any less real.

Jim asked the question as captain, and Spock responded to him as captain. Vulcans are so much better at compartmentalizing, and he must have already known what Jim is only realizing now. 

They are not contradictory things. You can be in love with someone and still be able to do the right thing. One doesn’t automatically preclude the other. You can’t control your feelings, but whether or not you allow them to compromise your judgement – is up to you.

For the first time, Jim realizes why the number of command positions in Starfleet always exceeds the number of officers available to fill them. He understands suddenly in a flash of insight why Spock designed and programmed Kobayashi Maru the way he did – something that had both eluded Jim and pissed him off ever since he learned of the simulation. He gets it now. He gets what his mom is trying to say and he understands why. Maybe he’s inherited this from the father he never knew, except Winona is exactly the same, despite never having occupied the big chair. So is Spock. So is the most reluctant admiral in the Fleet Christopher Pike. A starship captain is a very special breed and it succeeds by unnatural selection.

Jim is one. For him, for people like him, who they are and what they are, are the same thing.

\--

They go to the ball. Spock dances at the ball. Jim feels like his entire universe has been rearranged somehow, because nobody warned him about that. 

“You’re drooling,” Uhura says sweetly, her chin on his shoulder.

“I don’t see you looking away. Did you know he could do that?”

“No, but this isn’t exactly a mamba. This is essentially mathematics in dance form. Makes sense he’d be good at that.”

“This is horrible,” Jim decides. “He’s a horrible person.”

Uhura laughs, arms wrapping around his waist – not just role-playing, affection. “I’m sure he thinks the same about you.”

Admiral Nechayev is always trouble, and Jim is puzzled but not surprised as he watches Spock being marched away in irons. He adds a prison break to his to-do list and orders Uhura to find and kidnap the damn woman if she has to, and then the events speed up to a level that is almost too fast to follow.

There are moments in life where things just make sense without any effort. They might have been incredibly complicated before, but not within the moment. There is no time to think, but also – no need. Like the time Jim and Spock beamed aboard the _Narada_ , or when Spock chess-played him through that damn minefield. You can live your entire life in moments. It’s easy like flipping a switch.

Complex mathematical equations are suddenly simple, just means to an end. Disregarding Chekov’s warning ( _‘Captain, your calculations are correct, but it could be the background radiation of the universe for all we know, not a cloaked ship!’_ ) takes barely a second, even as the information passes through him and the concern registers. Being tumbled dry swept in a warp wake, beaming down bare seconds before the shuttle disintegrates take no courage, no decision-making. Jim can see his whole life being stretched in a series of moments like that. Then he sees Spock’s face on the screen, cold and austere, and he’s thrown out of it, grounded to human perception.

Spock is scary. He’s so convincing as a heart-broken Vulcan who’s turned over to the dark side, _Jim_ almost believes him. 

“The Romulans are a dirty stain on the tree of Vulcan evolution. They should never have left their _caves_. They should be eradicated.”

Jim’s mind barely grabs onto the only word Spock has actually meant to say, so stunned he is by the performance.

This is goodbye, he thinks, a little shocked. It’s not that he believed either of them was exempt from dying, it’s just… _too soon_. Jim isn’t ready. They didn’t even have the time to—

The connection cuts off. Jim runs into one of the service tunnels, and there, yes, at the very end of it, an entrance to the natural cave formation, a two-by-two gateway reinforced with seismic stabilizers, against an occasional cave-in, granted, not an earthquake, but it’s still a chance. Jim lies down on the ground and curls into a ball, protecting his head, just as the ground explodes in the chamber behind him.

He blacks out, for how long, he doesn’t know. His throat feels scratchy when he comes to, a clear sign of oxygen depletion. His body is galvanized into action and makes him crawl and climb along the ruined tunnel to where the weapons chamber used to be. There, in the middle of scorched uneven ground, is Spock.

Jim says his name. Says something else that doesn’t matter. Nothing at all matters until Spock’s lips are pressed against his own in a kiss so full of unguarded, overwhelming, brutal in its panic love that it makes his heart break. He wants to soothe, to comfort, to gentle out the pain. Spock shouldn’t be hurting so much, Spock shouldn’t—

Spock pulls back, his mind having caught up with his actions. 

No, Jim thinks. Hell no. Not this time.

He argues, reasons, yells. He throws words at Spock by the handful, desperation making him angry. He’s powerless to help and he knows it. He can’t bring Spock across – Spock has to take the leap himself. He’s almost there, tittering on the very edge, looking so uncertain that it’s killing Jim. How could he not know? How could he doubt? He feels it, Jim _knows_ he feels it. Why can’t he just _believe_? Who told him this could never be his story? And why on earth did he believe _them_?

_I’ll catch you. I swear to God, Spock, I’ll catch you. Just do it. Jump. Let go._

“You—” Spock falters. Then, in a singular most powerful fit of courage Jim has ever seen, he says, “You love me. You are in love with me.”

Jim nearly faints in relief.

“That—” he stammers. “Spock, God, that—”

He loves Spock, yes. He wants him, certainly. But those things are just – surface. Sunlight on the surface of the lake. They might live on the surface, spend the rest of their lives treading water, but what they are lies so much deeper down. Deep waters with their currents, and monsters, and silence. A well with no end.

Back aboard their ship, Spock comes to him without being asked. He touches Jim unprompted. There’s pure physicality there that Jim can’t deny, would never dream of giving up for anything. Spock’s touch is hot, his hands confident and intuitive, his kisses are a punch-out drug. Jim doesn’t know how he could have thought he could live without this, his body _needs_ the way he’s never felt before, and he could fall in love just with the way Spock’s hands set his skin on fire, but it’s somehow still not nearly enough, and then Spock touches his mind.

Surface and depth collide in a brilliant kaleidoscope, and Jim holds on to Spock, overwhelmed of all things by _recognition_. Somewhere, on a plain so vastly different it eludes description, Jim says in endless wonder, _I know you_ , and Spock replies, _I know you_ , without either of them being aware of it.

Eons later when Jim has both the vocal chords and the ability to speak, he says, “I wonder if that happens every time.”

Spock’s hand counts down the knobs of his spine. “I do not know,” he confesses softly. “It has never been quite like this before.”

They make love the whole two hours they don’t have to be on duty. 

\--

It does happen every time, but it’s less intense – more of a possibility lurking, an invitation to cash in when they are ready. It feels as though that first time has established some kind of connection, opened a gate of sorts, and after the dust has settled, they were left free to explore and enjoy the physical realm as they wished.

Jim _loves_ Spock’s body. Loves the firmness and the strength, loves the paleness of the skin, loves the green wave of blush spreading over it like ink under Jim’s tongue and fingers. Spock touches him with certainty, exploring Jim’s reactions with a never-abating fervor of a scientist, without cheating through his telepathy, as though it’s some kind of challenge. But some things he just seems to know, divine intuitively, his pleasure at every new discovery obvious and bright.

It’s not that they get a lot of hours to themselves, if any, with all the debriefings and endless, endless meetings, but even falling asleep next to Spock when neither of them has any energy for anything is bliss. Spock hogs the blankets when he’s too exhausted to watch it, and Jim laughs helplessly for five whole minutes the first time he finds himself engaged in a tug-of-war with a very sleepy and very annoyed Vulcan. Jim should mind, but he doesn’t. That Spock relaxes to this extent around him is a gift. He won’t trade it for a less spoiled bedmate.

Starfleet is running them ragged in those blurry post-coup weeks, both Jim and Spock being torn between the ongoing repairs on the _Enterprise_ and endless testimonies. Most days Jim doesn’t remember his own name, he honest to God blanked out the other day while being sworn in. Spock in addition barely escapes a hostage status with Starfleet Sciences where he’s being sucked dry daily of all his knowledge and insights on the cloaking device. And yet they don’t slip once in public, even though Jim only ever goes to his own assigned quarters for a change of clothes at the ass-crack of dawn each morning.

Sleeping with Spock brings a discovery that Jim should have honestly expected but somehow doesn’t that Spock is in point of fact a freak of nature. Jim doesn’t think it has anything to do with his genetics and everything to do with Spock being certifiably insane, because, no matter how few hours of sleep he gets, he will get up every morning two hours early to meditate and do some weird Vulcan stretching. 

Jim sleeps through meditation with no pangs of conscience whatsoever, but he tries his best to be awake for the stretching part. As spectator sports go, it’s terrific, and usually ends either of two ways: Spock cajoles Jim to join him and get his blood and lymph flowing, which is unexpectedly energizing, or Jim manages to distract him enough for Spock to continue with his physical activity while back in bed. Jim suspects, if he and Spock actually lived together, his ability to distract Spock with sex would taper off fairly quickly because Spock is one really determined son-of-a-bitch and takes Jim’s challenges for what they are – challenges. But it’s working great for now, Jim’s winning, and yes, he’s keeping score.

There are a lot of days though when they don’t see each other at all, and Jim would wake up to an imprint of Spock’s head on the pillow next to him, a lingering warmth of a mental caress, and a freshly brewed pot of coffee. Spock, Jim decides the first time the smell of roasted beans wakes him, knows his humans entirely too well.

He’s in a meeting with Scotty, Sulu, and a few engineering techs, something about additional backups for helm control. Spock isn’t there, but for some cosmically wrong reason McCoy is. He’s probably stuck around after the previous one with Life Sciences, Jim isn’t sure. They’re all slowly turning into one blurry never-ending meeting in his head. 

Jim is too engrossed in Scotty’s explanation to spare a thought for anything else, so it catches him completely off guard when Sulu says:

“I wanted to run these by you last night, Captain, so I stopped by your room, but you were out.”

“Hm?” Jim is only half-listening. “Oh, yeah. I guess I was.”

“Aye,” Scotty says, not looking up from his PADD. “The energy of youth. I like me some bar hopping well enough myself, but these days when they drag me out of the Engine Room, I’m out like a light. Tell those ladies ye have a very handsome friend next time ye go, will ye, lad?”

Jim, who has finally fully woken up to the situation, looks up only to stumble over McCoy’s narrow-eyed, highly suspicious gaze. 

“Um.” Jim clears his throat, aware that the damage is done. “Sure thing, Scotty. Next time I go.”

McCoy waits until the meeting wraps at least. 

“You haven’t been bar hopping,” he says without preamble the moment Jim steps out into the corridor. “For one thing, you haven’t been pestering me for hangover cures, and we both know you can’t hold your liquor. For another, even you are not that insane with everything that’s going on. So where did you spend last night, Jim?”

Truth, Jim decides, is an excellent defense. 

“Starfleet Intelligence briefing overran,” he says in his most bored tone. “They read Spock and me in on the new protocols for the Romulan Neutral Zone. Jesus, Bones, I can’t talk about it, but if only you knew what a pain in the ass it’s going to be.”

Truth and nothing but the truth. Just not all of it.

McCoy still looks suspicious. “So why’d you lie to Scotty then?”

Jim shrugs. “I didn’t really. I don’t know, reflex. It’s need-to-know and he doesn’t. They made us sign about fourteen different NDA forms on that alone, as though anything we say isn’t covered by the officer’s oath anyway.”

He knows the threat has passed when McCoy says thoughtfully, “They’re probably extra paranoid after this whole thing with Nogura. Who’s still out there, by the way.”

Jim nods. “That’s pretty much what Spock said. I still think that’s overkill, but, considering the mess we have to muck up just now, I’m not complaining.”

Jesus, he even sounds convincing to his own ears. He finally begins to see how Spock gets away with never lying.

“So after that you went to bed like a good boy?”

He went to bed, yeah, though not his own. And it was pretty good, even if nothing happened except for actual sleeping. 

Jim grins at him. “Yes, Mom. I guess Sulu stopped by before I came back. It was sometime after two.”

They reach a junction where they need to split ways, Jim heading for the transporter room to beam down, McCoy going back to Medbay. Jim opens his mouth for a cheery goodbye, when McCoy grabs him by the shoulder and turns him around none too gently.

“You’re full of shit, Jim,” he says, eyes cutting and clinical. “Oh, I know you didn’t lie, but you know why Spock gets away with this kind of bullshit? He’s had years of practice and his face isn’t an open book, for most of us anyway. Hate to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t really work for you. Get him to train you or practice in front of the mirror, I don’t care, but next time do better, _Captain_. You’re lucky no one was paying attention. This was just embarrassing.”

With that, he turns on his heel and marches off, leaving Jim blushing and gaping in the corridor.

McCoy isn’t the worse thing to happen to Jim by far, though, because two days later he runs into Pike planetside. It’s in the commissary of all places, and Jim has just sat down with his tray, so he can’t just bolt and not look like an idiot.

Pike sits down across from him, smiling pleasantly, holding, ironically, an apple.

“Captain Kirk.”

Jim swallows. “Admiral.”

The silence stretches. 

“Well, this has been sufficiently awkward,” Pike says, turning his apple in his hand thoughtfully. He doesn’t look like it’s been awkward for _him_ in the slightest. “Relax, Kirk. I’m not going to punch you. Not that I don’t want to, if I’m honest, but I don’t want to get an earful later. Bad enough that he still finds the time to pester me about my health.”

And that’s new information, which Jim should have expected really. It still stings. It also makes him feel like an asshole. It’s a very multi-purpose piece of information.

“He can be very stubborn, sir.”

“Yes. Especially, when it comes to people he loves.”

Jim holds his eyes. “I know.”

Pike studies him for a moment. “You’re being smart about this. I didn’t expect that. I suppose that explains something.”

His tone makes it very clear that that ‘something’ is a tiny, miniscule part of the completely unexplainable whole. 

“Is this the part where you tell me I’d better not hurt him or else?” Jim asks.

“No, that one goes without saying. This is the part where I tell you to watch out for his bullshit, especially in the long run. You’re operating on very different time scales. Don’t get complacent, not several months, not several years in. The moment you do, you lose him.”

Jim doesn’t need to ask where this particular piece of advice is coming from. He’s also under no delusion that it’s given for his sake.

Instead, he asks, morbidly curious, “Would you have done it differently? If you could go again?”

Pike thinks about it for a few long moments. “No.” He shakes his head. “It’s better this way. For everyone, I think.”

Jim studies the face he knows Spock will hold dear until he goes to his grave. 

“Chris,” he says quietly, “are you happy?”

Pike blinks, coming out of a reverie, and focuses on Jim once more. He smirks. “And here I thought you’ve grown out of asking stupid questions.” 

He stands up, his cane a clear burden. “I’ll see you the day after tomorrow at the court-martial, Captain.” He sets the apple on Jim’s tray. “Your food’s getting cold.”

Jim’s food has turned to ice by the time Pike’s made his way out of the commissary, but Jim’s appetite is nowhere to be found.

That night, Spock shakes him awake some two hours after Jim has drifted off. 

“What,” Jim mutters, trying to roll away. Spock’s hands, of course, hold steady. “God, Spock, what? Is something on fire?”

“You were having a nightmare, Jim.”

He stills. He was at that. The sheets are tangled around him in a way that defies the laws of physics. It’s a wonder he didn’t suffocate. Spock, he remembers, wasn’t there when Jim went to bed.

“Sorry,” he says and rubs his face. “Oh God, I’m so sorry.”

“It is illogical to apologize for something you could not control.”

He wasn’t apologizing to Spock, is the thing. His brain finally catches up with him, and he sinks back, letting Spock straighten the bedding. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he warns.

“I understand,” Spock agrees, hovering close, but not touching. “Can I help?”

Spock’s quarters are pitch-dark at night, which is the only reason Jim can actually say, “Hold me.”

He doesn’t fall asleep at all until morning, though Spock does drift off at some point. His arms never release their hold on Jim, until Jim pries them apart gently when his alarm goes off.

McCoy is waiting for him outside Spock’s room with a glower and a cup of coffee in his hands. Jim takes the coffee and addresses the glower.

“I’m not in the mood for a lecture, Bones.”

“Good. I’m not in the mood for wasting my breath. Komack wants you, you’re not answering your comm, and, shockingly to us all no doubt, no one can find you. They paged me first, but I’m pretty sure Spock is their next call, so if you want him to get his beauty sleep – and God knows he looks like he needs it, you’d better check in.”

Caffeine hits around the same time the words do. 

“Bones—” Jim stops, staring at him. “I—”

“Yeah, yeah.” McCoy waves him off. “You owe me.”

Jim does. Jim is sending him a _crate_ of Saurian brandy the moment he’s done with Komack. 

“I meant what I said before, Jim,” McCoy sends after him as a parting shot. “Get it together, for crying out loud.”

He might at that, Jim thinks, turning the corner. He doesn’t have time for a shower, but if Komack has a problem with that, he’ll have to deal.

\--

Nogura’s court-martial is a joke. Somehow, it’s even more of a joke than Spock’s had been over a year ago, not that Jim is any more prone to laughing. Every testimony has been given in advance and recorded, all evidence meticulously analyzed and examined, every last line approved and rehearsed, yet it still takes them three full days to get through the whole thing. After which, they offer him a deal.

It’s not that Jim doesn’t think Starfleet will get over it. He’s been dragged through enough of this to realize, even if it’s through gritted teeth, that, if he had been in charge of it, he’d most likely have made the same decision. It doesn’t sit any better with him, knowing this.

During the last break just before the verdict, he finds himself looking across the court-room to where Spock and Uhura are talking to Admiral Nechayev. A moment later they are joined by Pike and a tall striking woman with eerily perfect features Jim knows as Number One, completing the set. She and Spock exchange courteous nods before their attention is drawn back to general discussion.

Jim watches them all with a sense of heavy weight settling in his stomach. They’re handling it. Hell, they are _managing_ it. He can barely sit through the spectacle without snarling and, now that it’s over, he feels like he’s been dragged through excrements and made to roll in them before he’s allowed up. Of course, none of them have probably stayed up all night studying Nogura’s stratagems…

Still. Pike had made plenty of morally ambiguous decisions during his tenure as captain. All justified, all tough choices, but nevertheless. Admiral Nechayev – Jim isn’t familiar with her service record, something he has to rectify as soon as possible, but judging by her performance in the latest crisis as well as her putting herself in a position from which she could oversee and control everything from the beginning speaks for itself. Spock has been through hell and back at least three times over, and that’s just during the time Jim has known him. 

And yet to _them_ , it doesn’t stick. 

It just doesn’t stick. Somehow, while not shying away from the dirtiest parts of it, they manage to emerge as clean and perfect as before it all began. Perhaps a little wiser. It’s not an acquired skill. You either have it or you don’t, and it turns out that Jim doesn’t.

He stands up and walks out of the hall. He’s supposed to stay, stand there front and center, but he doesn’t have it in him. He’s not that good an actor, and he’s not – whatever _they_ are. He walks on.

He contacts Scotty and Sulu and leaves a note for Bones. He doesn’t leave a message for Spock; he just can’t right now. It’s a dick move, and he’ll apologize later, but just right this moment he can’t. He goes to his own room for a change and packs a small bag. 

He leaves.

\--

Iowa greets Jim with a frosty breath of wind in his face. The house is frozen through, so he turns the generator on and goes for a run. The old lanes are empty, barely any wind, dry leaves crumbling under his feet occasionally.

His neighbors have never quite gotten over everything Jim had got up to when he was at school with their kids, so there’s no danger of them throwing him a parade. But in a few hours several baskets and boxes materialize on Jim’s porch, filled with fruit, vegetables, bread, and fresh meat, though no one sticks around to say hello or shake his hand. They might just think he’s incapable of feeding himself and don’t won’t him to die, or they might have acquired a sudden respect for another person’s privacy, there’s no telling. How they even know he’s there is beyond Jim.

He spends the first three days in a curious state of not thinking. He sleeps as much as he likes, though his body wakes him up fairly early. He tries sleeping in the next day on purpose, but can’t make it happen. He misses his bunk on the _Enterprise_. He goes for long runs, patters around the house, cooks (badly), eats whatever doesn’t need cooking, and reads some of his old books, still piled up in boxes in the attic. 

He checks his messages, because the last thing he wants is someone at Starfleet panicking and tracking him down. He reads Scotty’s updates and ignores McCoy’s texts. He ignores the fact that Spock hasn’t sent him a single message.

By day four, he’s officially too bored to continue, and goes about fixing the house and the yard. They’re in dire need of some attention after years of neglect. He exchanges a few words with whoever passes by and ventures into town once to get beer. 

On the last day before the _Enterprise_ is scheduled for departure after yet another pompous ceremony – and Jim has mostly made peace with that, he goes out. It’s not a conscious decision, but somehow he finds himself in the parking lot of the bar closest to the shipyards, the one where his first attempt to impress Uhura had crashed and burned so spectacularly once upon a time. He wonders what the hell he’s doing, but goes in.

It’s fairly early in the evening, the crowd isn't that big yet, and they are mostly townies, with a few cadet reds skittered here and there. No one recognizes Jim as he walks unobtrusively to the bar and nods at the bartender.

“Hey, Brad.”

Brad looks up. “Jim Kirk, as I live and breathe.” He grins, the same crooked jerk of the corner of his mouth that Jim remembers. “Been a while. Your usual?”

“Thanks.”

They chat a little as Jim drinks his beer. He’s always liked Brad. Not enough to fall into friendship, but they used to have an understanding. Brad even let him man the bar a few times, and Jim did a fairly good job of it. 

The night picks up momentum inevitably, and Brad becomes too busy to talk, but Jim doesn’t mind. Has he grown old, he wonders. He’s perfectly content to sit at the bar, drink his beer, and watch the rowdy young crowd. He doesn’t want to hit on anyone, and doesn’t want to join a drinking contest. They look like kids to him. Jesus Christ, when had that happened?’

The sound of furniture being upturned draws his attention, and Jim very nearly laughs at the familiarity of it all. The difference is, this time it’s two townies against five cadets – seriously, what are the requirements to get on the security track, these guys just never learn – though one of the townies looks like he’s had enough already. Jim can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but he knows that tone, and isn’t at all surprised when fists start smashing.

What _is_ surprising though is that he never intended to move yet finds himself jumping up onto the bar and whistling loudly anyway. The room freezes around him, everyone turning to stare.

“All right, that’s enough!” Jim bellows, using his command voice, also without thinking. “The next person to throw a punch is expelled – don’t think I won’t.”

He's not in uniform, but recognition blooms gratifyingly in their faces, most of the Starfleet crowd anyway. The townie is released in a heap, and Jim almost winces in sympathy. He jumps off the bar instead and walks toward the group, now standing at attention.

“You there, what’s your name?” Jim points at an older man, wearing Academy greys, who’s been hovering near the wall warily.

He steps forward. “Lieutenant Mark Cooper, sir.”

Jim’s eyes narrow. “You were supposed to watch this lot, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Consider yourself on report.” Jim turns away to look at the five burly guys who all look like Hendorff’s younger cousins. He very nearly smiles, but reins it in, scowling for good measure. “You – weak left. You – over-swinging. You – no balance. You – getting in the way. And you – transfer to Botany or something, you’re completely useless. You lot are a disgrace. Aren’t you supposed to be trained? Oh wait, that’s against the Romulans and the Klingons, not against _unarmed civilians you’re supposed to protect_.”

He looks over their faces wondering if anything’s sinking in. Somewhere over in San Francisco, Admiral Christopher Pike is laughing himself stupid right now.

“Party’s over. Get back to your barracks, and when you’re back at the Academy report to your supervising officer for disciplinary action. Dismissed.” 

They scramble, the lieutenant bringing up the rear. Jim scans the remaining crowd. “Anyone in uniform, you’d better pray I don’t remember your faces or the fact that you did nothing to interfere.”

The remaining cadets scatter like frightened kittens. Jim rubs the back of his neck and looks at the townie, but he’s no longer there. His friend has helped him to a chair near the wall, both of them looking banged up, but not drastically so. Jim had had worse.

“You guys okay?”

They nod. The one who was taken down first looks at him. “For fairness’ sake, er, sir, I started it.”

Jim grins. “If you want a piece of the action that badly, maybe you should consider enlisting.”

His friend snorts, even as he’s carefully touching his clearly broken nose. “Ow. Let’s just get out of here.”

Jim nods. “Good idea.” He walks back toward his chair, the room slowly settling into a quiet murmur behind him. 

Brad slides a fresh bottle of beer toward him and comes over. “I should start charging Starfleet, you know.”

“For the furniture?”

“Nah, that’s been unbreakable since before your time. Why do you think it’s so ugly?”

“I’d wondered.”

“No, it’s just first some punk starts a fight in my very fine establishment. The next thing I know he’s on holovid getting a medal for saving the planet or something.”

Jim snorts. “If you’re basing it all on me, that won’t get you far.”

“Nah, see now, it’s not just you, it’s a pattern. First there was this Vulcan kid, who’s now some big-shot commander. Then you. Then, for all I know, that little shit who just dragged his ass out of here. I could be rich if this carries on.”

Jim blinks. “What Vulcan kid?”

Brad shrugs. “Well, I guess he’s not a kid anymore.” When Jim still looks uncomprehending, he says, “Shit, Jim, I’m no good with names. The guy you’re serving with, you know the guy.”

“Spock?” Jim stares. “ _Spock_. Was in your bar. In a bar fight?”

“Sure was. I remember because we don’t get a lot of Vulcans, so it was a hell of a surprise to see him. Some guys tried something with his girl, looking for a fight, I guess.”

“His girl?”

“Yeah, little blond chick, kinda mousy. One of them tripped her or something. Next thing I know the Vulcan’s wiping the floor with them. That actually cost me. I think that’s when I replaced the damn tables with unbreakables.”

Jim can’t really contain his shock. In his mind the words ‘Spock’ and ‘starting a bar fight’ don’t go together, no matter how hard he tries.

“Same guy came for them as he did for you,” Brad remembers. “Older guy. Captain – what’s his name? Captain—”

“Pike?” Jim asks, verging on hysterical. 

“Yeah!” Brad’s face clears. “Dressed them down right here, same as you did. Felt kinda sorry for the kid, but I guess he did all right.”

Jim starts laughing. It comes first as a snort, then a giggle, and then he can’t stop if his life depended on it. He barely manages to say goodbye to Brad and make it outside, before he collapses in a fit of laughter. All this time he thought. And they just. He laughs and laughs and laughs until his sides hurt. 

He locks down the house that very night, and leaves for San Francisco.

\--

Jim gets there in the middle of the night. Spock, in order, fucks him through the matrass, forgives him, listens to him, makes fun of him, and laughs with him, on the inside if not the outside. Jim takes it all and asks for more.

He’s gentle with Spock as he takes him in the shower. Gentle later, when they do it again in Spock’s bed. But in the meld, he can’t hide anything, even if he wanted to.

 _Her name was Moira_ , Spock explains, the impression of a smile drifting over. _She was a good friend. And it was a deliberate provocation_.

 _I’m sure_.

 _I was very young, Jim_.

 _And apparently you were me when you were very young_.

 _There appear to be… distinct similarities_.

Jim laughs in the meld, laughs helplessly as he fucks Spock again, submerged in a protective, sunlight-bright sea of emotion. He will never make Spock name it, but he doesn’t need to. And when he sneaks out in the morning to get dressed for the ceremony, he goes with a kiss.

\--

The _Enterprise’s_ departure is expedited, courtesy of Admiral Nechayev. It’s almost enough to make Jim like her, if not for the blatant and unapologetic way she’s trying to make off with half his senior staff (she still doesn’t like Scotty and had nearly come to blows with McCoy that one time). Still, gift horses and all that.

He leaves the pre-launch checks to Spock, which is the way Spock prefers it anyway, and goes for a good old-fashioned workout, treadmills and weights and all. He needs to clear his head.

Later that night, he sneaks into Spock’s quarters, and Spock doesn’t kick him out. It should be expected at this point, but Jim still counts every time as a minor miracle. 

It’s not that he’s insecure. It’s just that Jim had grown up thinking he wasn’t allowed to want things for himself. For the longest time, he didn’t bother. The first time he said ‘fuck it’ and did it anyway, he landed in the captain’s chair. The second time…

The second time is sleeping next to him now, dark hair tousled, angular features turned soft in relaxation, sweet the way they never are when Spock is awake. Jim wants to make love to him so badly it hurts, at that moment, at any moment. Not the least because he still feels that it could be snatched away in the blink of an eye if he’s not careful and maybe even if he is.

Spock wakes up two and a half hours before Alpha and removes Jim from his person gently but firmly, sitting up in bed. 

“Lights forty percent.”

Jim groans. “I’m gonna kill you.”

Amusement curls around him like wisps of smoke. Spock is laughing at him. “You are welcome to sleep in your own quarters.”

“What is my life,” Jim mumbles, burying his face deeper into the pillows on Spock’s side of the bed.

More amusement and – tenderness?

“Lights twenty-five percent,” Spock concedes. 

Precisely one hour forty minutes later he wakes Jim up with no compunctions whatsoever, already fully dressed and disgustingly functional. Jim hates the universe a lot, but then Spock presses a mug of coffee in his hands, and life begins to look a little better. Spock’s amusement ripples through him again, and Jim could really, really get used to this.

He’s still blinking blearily, his coffee strong and only just shy of scorching, and misses the moment when Spock tilts his chin up and leans over.

“Don’t,” Jim says, trying to turn away. “Haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

“Hygiene is important,” Spock agrees and kisses him soundly anyway, a long, deep, drugging kiss that leaves Jim entirely awake in a way that’s going to be really uncomfortable for the next few minutes, because Spock doesn’t play fair.

“What have I done to you lately?” Jim mutters, breathless, shifting on the bed.

Spock looks at him with some sympathy, but mostly he’s still laughing at Jim’s expense even if not a muscle in his face twitches.

“I will see you on the bridge, Captain.”

Jim watches him leave, sulking. Briefly he contemplates the idea of taking a shower here and then either parading around the ship naked or putting on his old clothes. He takes a whiff of his t-shirt. Yeah, no.

Mug firmly in hand, he steps out into the corridor and nearly collides with Ensign Cabrera who’s just turned the corner.

“Oh, Captain.” She smiles at him a bit absently, barely looking up from her PADD. “Good morning, sir.”

“Morning, Ensign,” Jim replies automatically and looks after her, a bit puzzled at the non-reaction.

He’s dressed in an old tee, some really loose sweatpants, is decidedly barefoot and is nowhere near his own quarters. There are two possibilities here. Either he has conditioned his crew not to respond to any level of crazy unless it’s on fire and actively attacking, or – well.

“Computer,” he says the moment he’s through the door of his own room, pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it in the direction of the bed. “Pull up all Starfleet regulations regarding sexual liaisons within the same chain of command. Narrow it down to those pertaining to captains and first officers only.” He pauses for a moment, stepping out of his pants and kicking them aside, thinking. “Cross-reference with everything there is on Vulcans serving in Starfleet. I want every precedent listed.”

“ _Working._ ”

“Transfer when ready to my PADD.”

He takes possibly the quickest shower in history, and still has over twenty minutes until shift change. There’s definitely some advantages to Spock’s crazy morning habits.

He stops by the mess to grab an apple, never once pausing his reading. It’s very fortunate that Starfleet training included speed-reading, because there are _a lot_ of regulations involved, some of them setting Jim’s teeth on edge. By page forty he’s scowling. By page one hundred and two he’s more confused than he’s ever been. By page three hundred and twenty he starts grinning.

“Captain on the bridge!” Chekov calls out merrily, and for once Jim doesn’t mind.

“Morning, everyone,” he says, unable to contain his glee. Since today is the day they’re finally let off the leash, no one is surprised at his jubilant mood. Jim sits down in his chair and calls over his shoulder, “Mr. Spock, ship’s status?”

“All systems working normally, Captain. We are clear for departure.”

“In that case, Mr. Spock, kindly take us out.”

“Yes, sir.” Spock steps down from his station and comes to stand just in front of Jim’s chair to the right. “Lieutenant Uhura, signal our departure from space dock. Mr. Sulu, release docking clamps. Clear all moorings.”

“Aye, sir.” Sulu sounds way too happy, which only confirms Jim’s long-standing suspicion that he adores old navy rituals far more than he lets on. “Departure from space dock complete.”

Spock turns to look at Jim, eyebrow raised in polite inquiry. “Destination, Captain?”

Jim grins up at him. “Surprise me.”

“Mr. Sulu,”—Spock turns toward the helm, —“set course at your discretion. Try to avoid the Romulan Neutral Zone, if at all possible,” he adds dryly.

“No promises, Commander. Course laid in.”

“Ahead warp factor one.”

“Warp factor one, aye, sir.”

Jim comes to standing next to Spock, close, just shy of brushing their shoulders. “So, Mr. Spock,” he says quietly, watching the stars drift by. “Do you happen to know where we’re headed?”

Spock looks at him, warmth seeping through the professional as he holds Jim’s eyes.

“Not precisely, Captain. However, I am certain we shall soon find out.”

Jim grins at him, and they both turn to look straight ahead together.

\--


End file.
